Havard Essay, Research Paper

“You must escape, or you will die…you must find the place…you must hunt for yourself…you must find me” (Wolfe 482). Eugene Gant…a young man filled with high hopes and much desire. Certain forces throughout Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel begin to push Eugene out into the world where he can truly find himself. These same forces make Eugene realize his own abilities, needs, and wants. As the novel progresses, Eugene becomes surrounded by symbols for him to seize the day and release all his pain and emotion. In his novel, Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe tries to show how family, small-town life, and the worlds of high school and college affect the passions of a young man.

Wolfe demonstrates how family life adds coal to the burning passions within Eugene. Throughout the novel, he describes how Eugene’s tumultuous, neglectful, and disturbing home and family life work on the emotions of Eugene. For example, the lack of attention placed onto Eugene starts at a very young age. Not only is Eugene part of a large family, but his father, Oliver, “slept when the great pangs of birth began in Eliza at two o’clock and slept through all the patient pain and care of doctor, nurse, and wife” (Wolfe 27). Eugene, just from his mother’s womb, can sense the feelings of disregard that his drunken father has not only for Eugene but also for Eliza. This neglect probably fills Eugene’s heart and becomes “a grappling with life, a remembrance of things past tinged by the shadow of regret, of one who has found his youthful experiences full of confusion” (Chamberlain 4027). These same feelings of neglect turn into abuse as alcohol and Oliver’s temper cause him to hit his own son Eugene. As expected, Eugene receives less understanding from his father as the novel proceeds and when it is time for college, Oliver “spoke his final word and thus it was decided that Eugene must go to the State University, yet Eugene did not want to go to the State University” (Wolfe 321). Eugene becomes a product of his uncaring and inconsiderate family life and this begins to build up Eugene’s passion for life away from his family; thus, showing the connection between family life and the emotions within Eugene.

Wolfe reinforces the idea of family life as an instigator for Eugene’s passion. Throughout Look Homeward, Angel, he demonstrates how the actions and mistakes of Eugene’s siblings cause Eugene to change his ways. For instance, Eugene reflects on the character of his sister Helen and realizes his distinct similarities to her. She did not know what she wanted to do with her life; it was “probable that she would never control even partially her destiny: she would be controlled, when the time came by the great necessity that lived in her, that of which was to enslave and to serve” (Wolfe 209). This makes Eugene realize that he must not let the same thing happen to him. This seems to be a turning point in his life – an understanding of what he must do to change his future and “release his gropings, his pain, his self-discovery, and his endless search for an enduring faith” (Miningco Encyclopedia). Eugene receives more support for his self-search with the illness and death of his brother Ben. Eugene thinks about his own life and what he seeks for as Ben “sought for his life, for the bright lost years” (Wolfe 450). Ben’s ghost tries to give Eugene advice about life and Eugene’s voyage and therefore, this demonstrates the affect of family on the young Eugene.

Eventually, the circumstances of Eugene’s family life allow him to release his pain and win new life and passion. Throughout the novel, Wolfe builds up to the climax of Eugene’s emotions. For example, Eugene explodes at his mother Eliza and lets her know all the cruelty and indifference his has been feeling. He feels that “he has been punished and shall spend the rest of his life getting his heart back, healing, and forgetting every scar she put upon him when he was a child” (Wolfe 421). Although his parents may hold him a few years more, Eugene’s mind and soul are truly free. His heart was filled with “an almost insane hunger to devour the entire body of human experience” (Haycraft/Kunitz 1543). Eugene has finally gained the courage to let go of all the grief that is bottled up inside of his heart. He becomes a man who, as Ben states, is “his own world” (Wolfe 520). Now Eugene can begin to follow his own dreams and fulfill his own needs. The conditions of Eugene’s home life help to push him towards this turning point in the novel; thus, Wolfe clearly proves how family life has a profound impact on the decisions of Eugene Gant.

Another way Wolfe shows the development of Eugene’s passion by illustrating how small-town life causes Eugene to yearn for new adventures and experiences. Especially towards the beginning of the novel, Wolfe explains to the reader how Dixieland is a small town with little or no change or variety. For example, when Eugene walks through town with his father, everything is motionless and almost frozen in time. Eugene reflects on these observations and believes that Dixieland “is really like a city of the dead – a town, rimmed with frost, frozen below the stars in cataleptic trance as nothing grew old, nothing decayed, nothing died; it was triumph over time” (Wolfe 228). The quietness and inactivity of Eugene’s southern hometown open his own eyes to his need for change and experience. This eventually leads to what Underwood sees as “a manifesting hatred and loathing of the South” (Underwood 33). Eugene can no longer be part of an uneventful place. He needs to be surrounded by excitement and no matter how much longer he stays in Dixieland, his heart “seems as if it is already far and lost” (Wolfe 522). Dixieland has become a still city which Eugene cannot accept and therefore, it is clear how the concept of small-town life provokes deep desire within Eugene.

Wolfe further demonstrates how the development of Eugene’s passion is a byproduct of his growing up in a small town. Throughout the novel, outside circumstances bring Eugene to understand his need for new passion. For example, Eugene’s trips to the South with his mother instill into him feelings of desire beyond Dixieland. His feeling for the South was “not so much historic as it was of the core and desire of dark romanticism…the magnetism of some men’s blood that takes them into the heart of the heat and beyond” (Wolfe 127). Eugene needs to seize the day and experience life to the fullest. His new love with Laura James helps him learn that he must enter a new place and find new love. Eugene tries to escape from being a “silent, lonely soul, cut off from an external world” (Roberts 81). Eugene not only yearns for love, but also for experience outside of his hometown. The mounting hum of war is a symbol of excitement to Eugene. He claims that “war is not death; war is life” (Wolfe 424). While many young men may be fearful of war, Eugene sees it as an inspiration and change of scenery. This shows how the outside world began to take effect on Eugene’s emotions.

Eventually, these forces put pressure on the passions of Eugene. As he grows up, Eugene finally understands that he must leave home and that it takes courage to do this. For example, Eugene awakes one night as a young man to hear a voice calling him and telling him the way. This voice guides Eugene to “try, try, try the way…open the wall of light…the leaf, the rock, the wall of light…lift up the rock, the leaf, the stone, the unfound door…return” (Wolfe 244). This may be his soul calling him to action and warning him that he must not let time and opportunities pass him by. Eugene “finds himself buried in a world of pettiness and animosity and meaninglessness, and determines to escape into the outside world, where he may seek glory and love” (Chamberlain 4030). It finally dawns on young Eugene that he has been keeping his feelings quiet for too long while his heart tried to escape Dixieland. He had been “maintaining a desperate neutrality; his heart, however, was not neutral and the fate of civilization hung in the balance” (Wolfe 289). These are some of the first signs of courage in Eugene. Eugene makes a transformation into a young man willing to discover the distant world; thus, his change demonstrates the effect of small-town on a young man.

The third way in which Wolfe reveals Eugene’s passion is by showing how the worlds of high school and college help Eugene realize his need for challenge. As the novel proceeds, the reader can see how schooling itself helps Eugene formulate his ideas for his future. For example, the State University which Eugene attends may not satisfy his passion, but it helps him realize what he wants from life. When Eugene returns to college after Ben’s funeral, he “plunges exultantly into the life of the place and cries out in his throat with this joy, because all over the country, life was returning, reviving, awaking” (Wolfe 487). He has now started over with a different path in his life. Wolfe is attempting to “give that silent heart, the inarticulate ghost of Eugene, a voice, and a language that will capture the images retained largely in his subconscious mind” (Roberts 81). And even earlier in Eugene’s youth, Altamont Fitting School instills feelings of resistance and rebellion in the fearful Eugene. Courage surfaces from within Eugene as he begins to have “terrible fantasies of resistance, shuddering with horror as he thought of the awful consequences of fighting back” (Wolfe 171). Eugene wants to escape and just by attending high school and college, feelings of triumph and courage to stand up for himself begin to grow inside of Eugene. This reinforces Wolfe’s concept that the worlds of high school and college have an impact on Eugene’s own thoughts.

Wolfe strengthens his idea that schooling opens Eugene’s eyes to his need for adventure. In Look Homeward, Angel, certain individuals help to bring out the abilities within Eugene. For example, Margaret Leonard, Eugene’s teacher at the Altamont Fitting School, expands Eugene’s mind with poetry and becomes his light to life. She, unlike Eugene’s parents, “spoke a calm low word to the trembling racehorse (Eugene) and saw he unholy fires that cast their sword-dance on his face: she saw the hunger and the pain” (Wolfe 254). Margaret understands how Eugene’s heart yearns for challenge and she becomes the first to truly expose Eugene’s mind to new things. She gives him a kind of freedom. Before Margaret begins to have an impact on him, Eugene’s “surface self, his public self, had open and relatively easy access to others, while his buried had none” (Roberts 81). Eugene had always hid his inner self, and Margaret was the one who tried to pull it out of him. Vergil Weldon, a great thinker from the State University, also pushes Eugene to consider new opportunities, such as the choice of Harvard. Although he may not know Eugene very well, he knows that Harvard “is the place for Eugene; it doesn’t matter about the others – they are ready now, but a mind like his must not be pulled green yet must be given a chance to ripen” (Wolfe 502). There Eugene will find himself and let his passion be free. Therefore, it is clear how certain people during Eugene’s high school and college years help to open Eugene’s mind and change his ways.