Gun, Gaining One\'s True Self:

¶ … Gun, Gaining One's True Self: Jane Eyre meets Andre Dubus

The thing you believe will protect you is the thing most likely to kill you. There is no safety in what is essentially a completely insecure world. But to gain one's true self and thus to gain the only form of security this world has to offer, throw this 'thing,' this talisman of security away. This principle is perhaps most obviously illustrated in the essay entitled "Giving Up the Gun," by Andre Dubus, as well as his other essays such as "About Kathryn." The last action the author performs is the titular action of throwing away the gun he thought would surely protect him from all harm, and protect those whom he loved from harm.

This essay "Giving Up the Gun," comes from the author's second essay collection, entitled Meditations from a Movable Chair. The title of the essay collection refers to Dubus' status as a disabled individual, a condition tragically conferred upon him after a car hit him while Dubus was attempting to aid a stranded motorist. The absurdity of good deeds and of faith in an insane, arbitrary, and murderous world is critical to all of this Catholic's author's essays, as well as his novel such as the House of Sand and Fog on a personal, physical and a religious, theological level.

Over the course of the essay "Giving Up the Gun," Dubus describes his fascination with firearms over the course of his life, and how this was instilled within in him even as a young boy. But for most of his existence, he made no bones about carrying guns mainly for hunting purposes, or purely for his own defensive protection. He admits he bought and carried a variety of guns with the explicit intention, or, one might say, the explicit fantasy of protecting not only himself, but also his loved ones (such as his sister from "About Kathryn), and all of the people around him whom he held dear or who simply struck him as vulnerable, on the streets of the cities he wandered. This is the dark side to Dubus' altruism that showed itself in its highest and most tragic manifestation upon the dark roadside that resulted in his getting hit by a car and becoming crippled. But this altruism also drove him into violent encounters, when he was carrying firearms on a daily basis.

But then, one day, Andre Dubus found himself in a situation on the street, where he became involved with two men, one of whom was threatening to murder other on the street. But Dubus discovered that pointing the gun at the offender did no good, it did not rectify the situation. After events became unbearably tense between the combatants, one of the men suggested that they fight without weapons. Finally, another one of the men's friends came by, and stepped in to stop any conflict from occurring. But Dubus realized that this was the first time that the reality of shooting somebody had come to him, in full force, much like the reality of rape only came to him after his sister was raped as he notes in his essay "About Kathryn,"

He realized he could have killed someone that night, and he realized the ugliness of his impulses. And he reflected on that thought. He realized, "with my luck, I'll kill someone.... [and] with that sentence, I felt the fence and gate, not even the lawn and porch and door to the house of sorrow I would live in if I killed someone." (Dubus, 1999) He realized he could kills someone, which was an ugly thing, and he could not bear to live with himself, should such an action transpire. So instead of always preparing for armed combat in his mind and physicality he gave up the gun and embarked upon a new life in the world, shorn of his previous firepower -- a better, purer life. Dubus' constant and abiding obsession with protecting others, with or without firearms, might seem odd to a reader, until one reflects upon another of his essays, "About Kathryn." In this essay the author chronicles the bayou he grew up in, in Louisiana, "You have to know what it's like down there. In Louisiana winter, my father played a lot of golf every weekend, unless a lot of rain was falling. You can work up a sweat just carrying a golf bag on that flat land. No need to wait for the long hot summer. If you're a woman you can be raped on your lawn two nights after Christmas, like my sister Kathryn." (Dubus, 1999, p/4) Kathryn is calm as she tells him this over the phone, but the author, naturally, is tormented by the inability to predict and prevent such events from occurring.

Andre Dubus' works are thus haunted by the theme of the home, such as in the House of Sand and Fog, and the body, such as "About Kathryn" and "Giving Up the Gun," becoming impinged upon by others. He is obsessed as an author, and perhaps understandably so, of being unable to be protected from outside impingement. Yet nothing can protect either himself or his loved ones, other than faith, goodness, and altruism -- neither homes, Christmas, nor guns can. Ironically, this man of contemporary American, so solid and masculine in his ideals and body, strikes up a resonant chord with the prose of Charlotte Bronte, a woman most famous for writing about cast-off orphans: In Chapter 4 of Jane Eyre, the title protagonist writes, she had "gathered enough of hope to suffice as a motive for wishing to get well: a change seemed near, --I desired and waited it in silence. It tarried, however: days and weeks passed: I had regained my normal state of health, but no new allusion was made to the subject over which I brooded..." But for all of her brooding and anticipation, like Dubus, she is unable to predict where the blow will fall upon her from fate.

Finally, the blow comes to the child Jane. She will be sent away to a cruel religious school run by one Mr. Brocklehurst. When asked about her own morally and socially unstable status, dependent upon a "benefactress" named Mrs. Reed whom despises her, by this corrupt man, Jane is pressed by Mr. Brocklehurst "And what is hell? Can you tell me that?" (as if he knows or has seen the place, and could lecture her upon its dangers.) Jane responds, obediently, "A pit full of fire." But after asked, "And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?" And responding "No, sir." When queried, "What must you do to avoid it?" She grows tired of such formulaic replies, as she has been giving, and decides to respond from her true self, and her gut impulse, where the best of Jane resides. "I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come, was objectionable: "I must keep in good health, and not die."

Unlike Dubus in his essay "Giving up the gun," Jane as a child has more admirable and humorous gut impulses of reply than the adult author, whose gut impulses often involve violence. However, Mr. Brocklehurst's response is similar to that essential inquiry posed to Dubus by life, and by Dubus as an author to the reader. "How can you keep in good health? Children younger than you die daily. I buried a little child of five years old only a day or two since, --a good little child, whose soul is now in heaven. It is to be feared the same could not be said of you were you to be called hence." (http://www.literature.org/authors/bronte-charlotte/jane-eyre/chapter-04.html) in other words, how can you know what will happen?

Jane's response, not articulated in this exchange aloud, is to remain true to her own principles, not to guns, men, or to outdated religious creed. As an adult, despite being buffeted by fate, however, Jane remains true to herself and to her own stalwart sense of God, even when enticed by a bigamous marriage by the man she loves, Mr. Rochester. To do so would be for Jane to become a stranger to herself, as Dubus does in "Giving up the Gun" to his own sense of self. Before Jane nearly enters into a bigamous marriage, Jane notes her guise in the mirror. "I saw a robed and veiled figure, so unlike my usual self that it seemed almost the image of a stranger. 'Jane!' called a voice, and I hastened down."(http://www.literature.org/authors/bronte-charlotte/jane-eyre/chapter-26.html)

When the truth comes out about Mr. Rochester, the man states, "Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise -- 'I will be yours, Mr. Rochester.' 'Mr. Rochester, I will NOT be yours.'" in other words, Jane refuses to sacrifice herself and her principles, as Dubus in "Giving up the Gun" eventually returns to his own true principles by giving up his gun. When pressed, Jane queries herself, and her true self answers, internally, "I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad -- as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation:" (such as, one might add, when the writer's sister is raped, as Dubus' Kathryn)

Rather, Jane continues, laws and faith "are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigor; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth -- so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane -- quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.'"(http://www.literature.org/authors/bronte-charlotte/jane-eyre/chapter-26.html)