Bang
F.R.R. Mallory
May 13, 2007

"Shhhhhhhh, be vewy vewy quiet; I'm hunting wabbits"
~ Elmer Fudd
(fud: a Scottish colloquialism for a rabbit's tail)
befuddled: to be made stupid by

Everyone knows that rabbits are tricksters, television tells us so. Television is the great modern storyteller, always present, always accessible, it is a manifestation of the plastic godhead whose altar is worshipped by millions. Through television people share culture and maintain a sense of community. We do this, in part, through archetypes and stories, such as Br'er Rabbit or Bugs Bunny, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Rabbit in Beatrice Potter.
Through this 'wisdom' the American reader knows that when a rabbit appears early in a novel it can symbolize the arrival of the trickster. Louis Owens in The Sharpest Sight confirms this symbolic association when his character, Cole McCurtain, tells us, "Cherokee rabbits were smart. They lived by tricks in a world of words and had a good time doing it." (Owens 12). In this way Owens asks the reader to focus on the Cherokee analysis of this archetype to discover what the appearance or essence of the rabbit represents in this story. We don't have far to go here because both Br'er Rabbit, Bugs Bunny and Peter Rabbit are associated with the same dual source material. One half of that source material is Cherokee.

Within the Cherokee framework of storytelling the objective is to return the relationships of the characters (animals) within the story to a 'balance'. When James Wafford, Cherokee storyteller of the 1800s, told the story of The Rabbit And The Tar Wolf, the rabbit in the story is accused of stealing water from a shared watering hole during a drought. The other animals, suspecting the rabbit of trickery, fashion a wolf made of tar and leave it at the watering hole. The rabbit happens upon the wolf at the well and tries to scare it away by kicking it, becoming stuck. That is how he is caught. This returns the relationships in the story to a state of balance. (Mooney 272).

When the rabbit shows up in The Sharpest Sight, Cole tells us that it is "Time for a trick,"... He pulled back the hammer and shouted" (12). Cole's father, Hoey, answers with, "Indians don't yell 'bang' when they go after meat," (14). Arguing, perhaps, that Cole isn't aiming his rifle at 'meat'. If I extend the analogy of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in this scene, this positions Cole as Fud(d) or he who is confused (befuddled) by the rabbit.

Owens reinforces these associations and includes his protagonist, Mundo Morales, when Mundo remembers Attis telling him, "Brer Rabbit, you know, that's a Choctaw story that a white guy stole and wrote up like he'd invented it" (41). This subtly suggests that the rabbit may be a white guy or indeed Owens may be making a comment about the trickster actions of the white people against both the native Americans and the Mexicans. In the small gap between where Cole yells "bang" and Hoey's answer, Owens develops the scene by revealing through Cole's thought process how the "Moraleses had once owned the whole county, and Hoey McCurtain topping that with how the Choctaws had once owned all of Mississippi and Louisiana and more" (14). Mundo answers this revelation later in the story when he says, "...and we sold it for a quart of whiskey... That's all it had taken Dan Nemi's grandfather to ... make him sole owner of all the Morales land" (42).

This identifies the possible 'rabbit' of the story as Dan Nemi. However, Owens has also established that the 'rabbit' being hunted, isn't so simple as to be possessed in a single individual. He shows us this thought process when Cole thinks, "he had been hunting without shooting for a long time without knowing it, or without thinking about it, which amounted to the same thing" (15).
As the story unfolds Owens pushes these concepts further when Attis' death is discovered and Luther tells Cole, "Us Choctaws you know, have always believed in blood revenge ... her folks killed him. They was acting like Choctaws. Now Hoey thinks he's got to revenge their killing. ... But, my nephew is wrong. Now there's a kind of balance...it's got to end" (97).
Layering one story into the other Owens flows Luther and Onatima into the thoughts and being of Hoey, when Onatima says, "I baked some corn bread to go with the fish" (185). As Hoey lays in wait for Nemi he "lifted his head and sniffed. He'd caught a whiff of frying fish...in cornbread and lard" (176). This is where Hoey intends to kill Dan Nemi. He intends to seek what he feels is blood revenge for the death of his son Attis. Yet, even as his rifle sight is exactly centered what Hoey does is whisper, "Bang." ... The fragrance of frying catfish was stronger now" (177). In this way Nemi is identified as both the rabbit and yet not the rabbit.

We have to go back to the beginning of the novel, to revisit the nature of the rabbit being sought in this novel, back to when Cole tells us, "Cherokee rabbits were smart. They lived by tricks in a world of words and had a good time doing it." (Owens 12). Nemi doesn't really fit into this picture of the rabbit. It is true that his grandfather tricked Mundo's grandfather out of his land, just as it is true that white people tricked the Choctaw out of their lands. But the tricks in this story are in the world of words and in a person enjoying the tricking of others. To find the rabbit we have to examine what Owens tells us about Jessard Deal. The first time we meet Deal it is through the perceptions of Mundo who observes that Deal, "...crouched in his bar like a trapdoor spider...as if he'd built his bar knowing it would be irresistible. [He] waited for ...shouted threats...rehears[ing] the room like an orchestra, drawing out the extra desperation from desperate men...taking all the meanness into himself...until he would come raging out from behind his bar and attack his customers. [Deal] had wished it" (80). "We are all essentially and fundamentally evil. We must grow into our evil" (212). This, is the rabbit. This is the character in the story who lives in the world of words. Words he uses to inflame men to violence so that he can have the excuse of brutality against others.

When Hoey shoots Deal dead, this is the symbolic repudiation of the violent sadist who pleasures in feeding on the vulnerabilities and weaknesses in others. This is the rabbit stealing the water of life. This is ceremonial rebalancing.

Works Cited

Mooney, James, ed., "Myths of the Cherokee" Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. 1897-98, Part I. [1900] Washington D.C.: Powell.

Owens, Louis, The Sharpest Sight. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.
1992.

Louis Owens
- too soon

Sometimes a book surprises you. Perhaps you start off jaded or busy or indifferent, ploughing along just to finish it and then there is a moment, like waking when you meet the author, when your brain and his brain hum together and you are taken into his world, his mind, his dreams and his way of being.

For me, these moments are so few that when they occur I am doubly shocked and then deeply saddened to discover the author is dead, that I could never meet them in life and express to them how they became my brother, my lover, my friend even though their work is none of these things.

It is hard to say how an author transcends their work, how they emerge through the pages and words as if penetrating the mysteries of time and space.

It isn't the first time that I've felt deeply connected through a work - that I've believed I've met a person in their most intimate and reserved places of their soul and when I do meet such a person it is like a discovered treasure, a memory of when there were no separations of life and death just the oneness of being.

This is Louis Owens for me. He I will read again and more of. He will find his way into my book bags and onto my massage table which holds all my best books.

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