NCHS AP English Language

Ellen Wagner - Joe Christmas Essay

Ellen Wagner B 2/23/07
Despite the fact that Joe Christmas’s initials are JC and his last name is Christmas, he is the antithesis of a Christ figure. Jesus was kind, loving, and non-biased. He taught, visited with the poor and sick, and in the end gave up his life willingly. Joe Christmas on the other hand is violent, impulsive, and biased against everyone (even himself). And in the end he died for no one, not even himself. Joe Christmas spends his life thinking things through, but ends up acting mostly on impulse. From a very young age, he learns the ways of the world, except he learns them all mixed up. Because of this, when he acts, it is from a skewed thought process. In the text by Girard Mimesis and Violence he says that two people (A and B) try to mimic each other, and eventually start to become each other, which only leads to violence. Because of Jesus being God (or saying he is), it leads to his being beaten and finally crucified. But who is Joe trying to become? He respects no one, and refuses to worship and god. In regard to the men in his life; the janitor (who turns out to be his grandfather) kidnaps him, Mr. McEachern beats him and tries to force religion on him, and Joe Brown turns out to betray him to the police. Each of these men he treats with cold indifference. During his childhood, he only allowed one person to care for him; Alice. Alice lived at the orphanage with him, but ends up getting adopted and leaving him. After this he allows no one, especially not women, to take care of him. The women in his life are equally not worthy of his respect (in his opinion); the dietitian, Bobbie, and then Joanna Burden all make him further hate women. Because of all these discombobulated relationships, he has no one to look up to, but himself. He has no parents, no god, not even a race to turn to, so he turns in on himself. Joe Christmas both wants to belong and wants to be rejected at the same time. Every time he starts to get close to some one, he forcefully pushes himself away, most often by violence. He turns in on himself, both halves of him trying to meld, to become a whole person, and it results in internal violence, which leaks out to those who get to close to him.

posted by Ellen @ 10:09 AM