ENGL 4310

I know that I am going back a ways, but I would like to discuss the tractor scenes in “Parker’s Back” and “The Displaced Person.” These are images that have really stuck with me. One is comical and the other is rather sad. Dr. P mentioned that he would like to see what “stories” come to mind when we read the stories assigned. I hope that this is what he meant. For me, the tractors did that for me in O’Connor’s stories. I am from a small community that consists of a lot of farming, my family included. My siblings and I have been driving tractors since we were very young, as have many of my friends. So I’ve heard great stories about tractors getting stuck in swamps and being flipped over in odd ways, etc.

The scene in “Parker’s Back” where he runs into the tree, I found extremely comical. I can just imagine a tractor going about 10-15 mph hitting a tree, which would make the tractor go up on to just the back tires flinging Parker a good distance, and then the tractor landing upside down and bursting into flame. I can just imagine it like in cheesy movies when a car crashes and explodes into a mushroom cloud when in reality that would never happen. I know that this scene was not meant to be comical, but I found it extremely so.

On the other hand, in “The Displaced Person” the scene involving the tractor I found extremely disturbing.
Mrs. McIntyre was looking fixedly at Mr. Guizac’s legs lying flat on the ground now. She heard the brake on the large tractor slip and, looking up, she saw it move forward, calculating its own path. Later she remembered that she had seen the Negro jump silently out of the way as if a spring in the earth had released him and that she had seen Mr. Shortly turn his head with incredible slowness and stare silently over his shoulder and that she had started to shout to the Displaced Person but that she had not. She had felt her eyes and Mr. Shorty’s eyes and the Negro’s eyes come together in one look that froze them in collusion forever, and she had heard the little noise the Pole made as the tractor wheel broke his backbone. (325-326)

My whole life I have known people who have either died from or been crippled from tractor accidents. When I was six I had a friend that fell off of a tractor and was ran over, which killed him. About eight years ago a family friend’s husband was working on a tractor, the tractor slipped, running him over, crushing his pelvis and damaging many of his internal organs. He has never fully recovered from that. The scene in “The Displaced Person” brought back those memories and others that I also find very difficult to deal with. So I understand a little of what happens to Mrs. McIntyre, which was that she “came down with a nervous affliction and had to go to the hospital” (326). But in her case I believe that the reason why she reacted so harshly was that she felt it was her fault that the man died. Moments before Mr. Guizac’s death she had been thinking of why she disliked him, “Of all the things she resented about him, she resented most that he hadn’t left of his own accord” (325). Another interesting aspect is if he had left earlier of his own accord, he wouldn’t be there in a situation that would wind up leaving him dead.