ENGL 4310

In “That Tree” the issue of male masculinity is again brought up. It is when the main character (I just realized that he doesn’t have a name) and Miriam go out to dinner, there is a fight between some generals. When the general’s guns come out, all of the Mexican girls do what is expected of them, “The point was, every right-minded Mexican girl just seized her man firmly by the waist and spun him around until his back was to the generals, holding him before her like a shield” (70). The correct thing to do in that culture was to save yourself, while sacrificing your man. Miriam did not know this and did not do what she was “supposed to.” “His wife Miriam had broken from him and hidden under a table. He had to drag her out by the arm before everybody” (70). I feel that if a girl really loves her man, she won’t hide behind him when guns are pulled out. She would find a way to not only save herself, but her man too. I’m sure that this was a sort of idea that was running through Miriam’s head. “It had been the most utterly humiliating moment of his whole blighted life. He had thought he couldn’t survive to pick up their things and get her out of there” (70). It’s interesting that his masculinity, for him, weighed upon whether his wife used him as a human shield.

Everyone in the café carried on as if nothing had just happened, “Indeed, nothing had happened to anyone except himself” (71). His masculinity had been insulted because his wife had not used him as a human shield, but he was really the only one that cared. Miriam thought that he was being stupid that he could take that so personally, and take it as a direct attack against his masculinity “She could not understand at all. Sometimes she said it was all perfect nonsense” (71). Most people in that situation would never think of using their husband to protect them from a bullet, but the main character is so selfish that he simply can’t see her point of view; he wants to make it all about him and make him the victim, “It should have had something to do with him” (71). Miriam not only thought that he was stupid for what happened that night, but she also thought that all of the Mexican girls were stupid for “feeding the male ego.” “At last she said, she hadn’t the faintest interest in what Mexican girls were born for, but she had no intention of wasting her life flattering male vanity” (71). Miriam is a woman who will not do things she considers stupid just to keep her man happy.