All people experience
violence in their lives at one point or another, but for most of us
it is a rare occurrence. In Andre Dubus' Memoir Townie,
we see that in his life however, violence seemed like a norm,
a habit, a ritual, an expected experience. Growing up in a harsh
environment, with a father that was absent for most of his life,
Dubus did not have much direction from the beginning. Throughout his
life, Dubus uses his own experiences to allow the reader to gain an
insight on violence and how it comes about, its real meaning and the
alternatives that one can take to avoid it. We learn that place,
economic status, gender, race, the family, fear, and art all
contribute to the way violence affected the life of Andre Dubus, an
important lesson in confronting the violence that may occur in our
own lives.
The first aspect of Dubus'
life that plays a role in the violence he experiences is place. Andre
was raised in mill towns in the Merrimack Valley, in the northeastern
part of the state of Massachusetts. These areas, and more
specifically the lower income areas that Andre actually lived in as a
child were quite the rough and tumble places in the 1960's and 70's,
when Andre was growing up. Without a doubt, this had some influence
on the person Andre was. Andre's most common form of violence,
fighting, had o do very much with the places where he spent his time
living, growing up, “maturing”. I put the “maturing” in
quotes because in some people's eyes like many of the people in
Andre's young life, becoming mature was to fight, get physical and
express yourself through violence, while many others realize that
learning to fight as the only way to deal with problems is simply not
the most mature way to live life. The areas Andre grew up in were all
working class, tough places, and to him these places bred fighters
and violence. An incident when Andre was around fifteen years old was
the defining start of the violent part of his life. His brother had
gotten beaten badly, and Andre had done nothing about it, not
standing up for him in any way. After the incident, Andre felt
completely ashamed of himself and after some consideration began to
transform his body into somewhat of a weapon. This event led him to
become the only type of person he knew that would be able to stick up
for himself or others. Perhaps in a more peaceful place, where fights
didn't happen as often, an event such as this one would never have
taken place, and as a result, maybe Andre would not have had to
transform himself into such a fighter. Instead of leading a life of
violence for some time, maybe he could have used his time more
wisely. (The only fortunate part of his violent turn being the fact
that it produced such a writer.)
The second part of Andre
Dubus' life that contributed to his violence, and the violence in the
memoir is his economic status. Without a doubt, the socioeconomic
class of a person and their family has something to do with how that
person is raised. In the higher classes, it seems as if there is less
interaction between the families. In that case, people are raised by
only a few people; the people in their family, and the people who
they spend most of their time with, who in the case of a upper class
person may be quite the select group. The influence of place is also
different, because the places people with money go are their own
choices, not based on their income or economic need. In the middle
class it can be a mixture of sorts. In some cases, the people that a
person spends time with growing up can be a limited group, but in
other cases this group can be large and full of many people. In the
case of the middle class, place can also play somewhat of a role in
the development of a person too. In the lower socioeconomic level,
people are typically influenced by many people around them, as their
social groups are not limited to their own choice, but rather based
on where they are due to their economic needs. Also, because of the
fact that a person of the lower class may not spend much time in
their home, especially in the case of Andre, they are much more
influenced by the people that are around them. In this case, the
place has so much to do with who someone becomes. This is because the
place someone grows up in coming from a lower class background is not
a product of a choice of the family, but rather a product of where
the family has it's roots and also where that family can afford to
live. In the case of Andre Dubus, the economic class he grew up in
certainly had an impact on his life, and more specifically, the
violence that was such a major part of it. In his lower economic
class, fighting and violence were much more permitted than they would
have been had he been born into a higher class family. In our
culture, and even more so in the 60's and 70's, fighting seemed to be
expected in the lower class, but in the higher classes, fighting is a
complete taboo, and is looked down upon. In this way, Andre was
influenced by his socioeconomic level as well.
Another part of Andre's
life that affected him and the violence that he experienced and took
part in was his gender. Through all of human history, for the most
part, it has been men committing the violent acts we see in society.
There is no doubt that Andre being a male had quite a bit to do with
the fact that he turned to violence at some point in his life. As
sexist as it may sound, especially with all of the attention these
types of issues are getting in the press, it is simply more
acceptable for men to be violent, and when Andre was growing up, this
was even more so the case. For Andre, he was encouraged by many, and
as a product of his society, the people around him and his gender, he
believed that as a man it was his duty to stand up for himself and do
whatever he had to do to gain an advantage in a fight, no matter how
much more violence that promoted.
Andre's race also had some
influence on the violence that existed so much throughout his young
life. It was not the fact that he was white that necessarily caused
him to be violent, but it was certainly because of this that all of
this violence was allowed and at some points even encouraged. If
Andre had grown up any different race, say Black, or Hispanic, any
police officer of the time would have found him fighting and locked
him up. The racist attitudes of Andre's day would have promoted
absolutely no violence in the communities of different races and just
dealt with any incident as another reason to lock up a person of a
different race. Andre being white allowed for him to be exempt from
this. In many cases his violent outbursts and all of the fights he
was in were judged rather as one of Andre's duties than as an
immature, unnecessary scuffle as it may have been if Andre was part
of a minority group.
Shown throughout the
memoir, Andre's family life had constant influence on him, especially
when it came to him bringing violence into his life. The first aspect
of his family life that allowed for him to turn to violence was his
lack of a father. Through most of his young life, Andre did not have
a father to watch over him and guide him to become a proper young
man, someone who does not get in fights consistently, but rather had
people around him who encouraged him to fight more than they tried to
stop it. It was this lack of a father that let Andre be so influenced
by these other people, and eventually led him to truly believe that
violence was the best option, and that fighting was the best way to
solve any problems. Growing up with a brother also impacted Andre's
violence. It was the incident when Andre was 15 years old that
sparked his violence in the first place. It was only after seeing his
brother get badly beaten that Andre decided that he had to start
transforming his body into something that he could use to fight,
something that would spread violence further into his own life and
the lives of others. After this incident, it became especially clear
that Andre's family had made such an impact on him becoming the
violent young man he had become.
Fear also played a role in
the violence that Andre turned to. As is the case with many people,
when one is afraid, sometimes they turn to violence for the solution
to dealing with that fear. In a talk with Bill Kenower, Dubus said
that it was the fear of not being able to defend himself or the
people around him that truly drove him to violence for an answer to
this fear. Because fear is such a powerful thing, it can drive people
to doing equally as powerful things, and in Andre's case, this was
turning to violence. The fear was so great in his case that violence
became almost a religion for Andre, one where he knew he could find
refuge from the fear that had plagued him earlier in his life when he
could not stick up for himself. Violence became something he could
turn to as an answer for any problem he had, and it certainly seemed
to work for him as he was successful in almost all of his violent
acts.
The final aspect of
Andre's life that was not realized until he was somewhat more mature
and older was art. Finally, at the age of 22, Andre began to write
fiction. Without knowing it at first, Andre had stumbled onto what
would turn his life around, and let him express himself in a way that
had only positive effects rather than the negative ones from his
violent life. In the same talk with Kenower, Dubus says how writing
became another way to let his emotions out, and to express himself
rather than just fighting and being violent all of the time. This was
such an important turn in his life, as discovering such a path lead
him away from the violence he had known for such a long time. He
talked about how writing opened him up in a different way than
violence, but still allowed for him to pour out all of his emotions,
troubles, and issues onto paper rather than onto the people he had
spent so much time beating on when his life consisted of so much
violence. Art provided the opportunity for the unexpected, yet
incredibly beneficial turn in Andre's life, and without art, he would
possibly still be doing the same things he was doing before he found
it.
From the time he was a
young man, Andre was groomed for a life of violence. His place,
economic status, gender, race and his fear all played a role in
pushing Andre toward a life of violence, and that is eventually how
he ended up living for so long. Violence was what allowed Andre to
express how he felt, his pent up emotions, and the stresses of his
everyday life. Thankfully, it was art that saved him, and allowed for
him to express himself in a different way, a way that lets his
readers everywhere know that violence is truly not the only option,
and that there is always a different solution to the problems we face
in our own lives.
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