Look Homeward, Angel

Wolfe begins Part 2 with a shift in perspective. While the novel has focused mainly on the perspectives of Oliver Gant and then Eugene, Chapter 14 provides an in-depth glimpse into Ben’s perspective as he begins a typical day in Altamont alongside various townspeople. The townspeople Wolfe features in this section represent a diverse range of social class, gender, and race. Wolfe frames these vignettes around the rising of these characters in the morning; despite the variations in the details of their surroundings dependent upon their social class, gender, or race, their actions are almost entirely the same. They are connected by the shared human experience of rising from sleep to begin a new day.

Separated from these descriptive vignettes is the scene featuring Ben at a restaurant, engaging with various professionals, including multiple doctors and the local undertaker. As the men banter, discussions arise naturally around the topic of death due to Wolfe’s choice to feature multiple doctors, especially Dr. McGuire, who is attempting to sober himself up for a major surgery, as well as Horse Hines, the undertaker whom the men mock. Death looms in the background of their daily routines, a symbolic gesture to the inevitability of death that haunts every person. Ben’s intense yawn at the end of the chapter, described by Wolfe as “the night-time accumulation of weariness, boredom, and disgust” (148), captures the ennui that troubles Ben throughout the novel. After yawning with the force of his entire body, Ben cries out, “Oh-h-h-h my God!” in a cry of distress, a request for relief from the lack of engagement present for him in Altamont. His cry is a human one expressed not only in his audible yawn but also in the actions of his fellow townspeople, who are trapped in an endless cycle of exhaustion and drunkenness.

In Chapter 15 Eugene feels instant kinship with a mentally ill boarder named Simon who stays at Dixieland for a short period of time. In a moment of symbolic significance, Simon chooses Eugene out of the Gant family almost instantly and gifts him money. Like Eugene’s clash with a horse in the alley of his family’s wealthy neighbors, this moment foreshadows Eugene’s access to social advancement in later chapters. Wolfe further solidifies the connection between Eugene and Simon in Eugene’s later description of himself “as a madman playing Caesar,” a realization that fills Eugene with shame and bolsters his debilitating lack of confidence.

Chapter 16 chronicles a major shift, as the path of Eugene’s life is rerouted by the educational opportunity provided to him by the Leonards. Eugene’s fellow students call John Dorsey Leonard “Creeping Jesus,” mocking his “clumsy stealthy tread” (168). However, Leonard does in fact act as a Christ figure for Eugene, as he saves Eugene from the life of alcoholism and utter disillusionment that has trapped Eugene’s father and his siblings. How Leonard saves Eugene holds symbolic significance as well; the name of the picture that Leonard presents to the students is “The Song of the Lark.” The picture features a young peasant girl working in the fields and observing a lark in its morning song. Larks usher in a new day and so are typically positively associated with daybreak; in his analysis of the girl’s expression, Eugene perceives the lark to be marking the beginning of spring, a period of rebirth. These details highlight how crucial this moment is for Eugene, who is born again under the Leonards’ tutelage and saved from the path of destruction that afflicted his predecessors.

In Chapter 17 Eugene is fully adopted into the new family he finds in the Leonards; he even describes Margaret Leonard as his “spiritual mother.” This further alienates him from his jealous siblings, who fear that something has irrevocably changed within Eugene. The juxtaposition of Eugene’s spiritual and birth mothers emphasizes Margaret Leonard’s abounding care over Eugene’s physical body, as she constantly reiterates the need for Eugene to maintain his health, while highlighting Eliza’s utter neglect of Eugene’s care and comfort, as she forces him to wear ill-fitting shoes that injure his feet. While Margaret frets over Eugene’s health, Eliza neglects her son’s needs in favor of fostering his potential to contribute to the family financially. Eliza provides for Eugene’s most basic physical needs, but Margaret and the Altamont Fitting School truly nurture and sustain Eugene.