ENGL 4310

I found He to be one of the most disturbing stories we've read yet. Perhaps because I am a mother and this story surrounds a CHILD. Even so, this "simple-minded" child seems to have no name. He is talked about, but seldom talked to, and He is treated more like the bull or pig on thier farm. He grows and grows as he eats "squatting in the corner, smacking and mumbling. Rolls of fat covered Him like an overcoat" (p.50). Mrs. Whipple calls him "a monkey, just a regular monkey" and says he knows what he's doing; but she doesn't believe he knows anything. It's not difficult to see "Him" as the pig (not at all unlike what O'Conner does in her stories with a type of transumption imbued in her forshadowing). The scene on p.52 when He snatches the baby pig from it's mama and Mrs. Whipple butchers it, is key (a type of metalepsis). He, too, will soon be snatched away from his mother in a way like the fattened pig to the slaughter. Mrs. Whipple has pushed her children before her to go in and face the sow and because the girls have "sense" enough to object, He is always sacrificed. By the time the pig is butched her view of the little pig may be imbued with her views of her own son: ". . . ; the sight of the pig scraped pink and naked made her sick. He was too fat and soft and pitiful looking. It was simply a shame the way things had to happen."
The later "Bull" scene on p. 55 also seems a transumption. He can be seen as the bull being pulled around by the nose:

He came on very slowly, leading the big hulk of an animal by a ring in the nose.
. . . Mrs. Whipple was scared sick of bulls; she had heard awful stories
about how they followed on quietly enough, and then suddenly pitched on with
a bellow and pawed and gored a body to pieces.

You can see how this is a type of forshodowing (He will indeed suddenly pitch on when he falls and siezes) that is imbued with how Mrs. Whipple sees Him (like and animal) as well as how she feels about him (scared sick of him). Mrs. Whipple's preception of her son as an animal is witnessed in her belief that he has no feelings, or at least not those as accute as her own, not just physically (he wears no shoes and goes without a blanket) but psycologically:

Mrs. Whipple couldn't believe what she saw; He was scrubbing away big
tears that rolled out of the corners of His eyes. He sniveled and made a
gulping noise. Mrs. Whipple kept saying, "Oh, honey, you don't feel so
bad, do you? You don't feel so bad, do you?"

Do not misunderstand me, what I am saying here is not He = animal. What I am saying is that these scene's, almost stories within a story, are there to give us further insight into what is happening in the main story. I am suggesting that these metalepsies are giving insight into how Mrs. Whipple views her own child and how thier relationship works. It is obvious to the reader that she is a proud woman that is constantly concerned with how others view her, but these insights help us to better understand how she views her her son. What she says to others are often lies ("I just took off His big blanket to wash") that are nothing more than a front to make herself look or feel better herself and are not an honest representation of how she really feels about her son.