Manliness and Murder in Andre Dubus's "Killings"

Introduction: A Community Without Justice

"Killings" by Andre Dubus is set in a blue-collar New England town along the Merrimack River. It presents a vision of a somewhat isolated community — outside of time, unsupported by any meaningful sense of law, order, or justice. Murder essentially goes unpunished, which is why the main character, Matt, takes the "law" into his own hands and murders Strout, the man who killed his son. Matt, accustomed to taking matters into his own hands as a man from a blue-collar town, feels justified in this killing — just as justified as Strout felt in killing Matt's son, who was sleeping with Strout's estranged wife.

While Strout's killing of Frank was based on passion — Strout's desire to repossess his wife and allow no other man to have her — Matt's killing of Strout is based on grief and a desire for vengeance (his son is dead, yet Strout is free to walk the streets and be with a woman). In this context, it is inappropriate to argue that either Strout or Matt is the more manly of the two, since manliness, or virility, comes from the Latin vir, meaning "man," which is also the root word of virtue — a habit of acting that is both good and manly. Which of these characters can be called good if both view murder as justified because of their own personal grievances, whether possessive or vengeful?

The answer is that neither is truly manly, because neither acts out of a habit of virtue but rather out of a habit of selfishness. Matt believes he has earned some peace in his twilight years; Strout believes he had every right to protect what was "his." Neither man sees the world from outside himself. This is the central problem of the story — a lack of real manliness. The men are driven by aims that are not genuinely manly, yet each believes he is acting rightly, based on mistaken and preconceived notions that manliness is about what one deserves: Strout "deserves" to have his family back; Matt "deserves" peace and will not let Strout disturb it. Meanwhile, real manliness is missing from the story and is only sensed by its notable absence — for instance, when Matt realizes at the end that he cannot make love to his wife, having literally lost his virility upon committing murder. This essay examines how Matt and Strout represent different aspects of "modern" manliness and how Dubus demonstrates that actual, virtuous manliness is absent from this small town through a style of writing that is atonal and unorthodox.

Strout's Manliness as Sexual Virility

Strout's "manliness" is represented by his sexual virility, which deeply bothers Matt — he keeps thinking about Strout being with a woman. It is also the primary motive for the murder Strout commits: he cannot tolerate another, younger man being with his wife. In his view, this is a perfectly acceptable rationale, and he grudgingly accepts his fate in turn, expecting that everyone, including Matt, should be satisfied by the fact that he is going to prison for it: "I'll do twenty years, Mr. Fowler; at least. I'll be forty-six years old" (Dubus 390).

This, of course, carries no weight with Matt. Even the respectful way in which Strout addresses him — calling him "Mr. Fowler" — is grating, indicating that Strout does not even possess enough self-awareness to feel hatred toward the father of the man he killed. On the contrary, Strout bears no grudge against Matt; to him, it is as though Matt does not exist. And this is the unspoken violation of the code of manliness in this small town: Strout does not hide himself, does not grovel, does not cower in shame and guilt, does not run from being seen, does not show remorse, and does not acknowledge that his actions might have emotionally devastated anyone else. He thinks only in terms of self.

Matt's arrival into Strout's sphere is an admonishment to this selfishness: Matt intends to show Strout that he is not the center of the universe, that he does not get a free pass, and that Matt will do something about it if the law will not. In this sense, Matt's motive, while rooted in grief, is at least outward-looking enough to recognize that Strout's impunity is an affront to others — yet, as the story reveals, acting on that recognition through murder does not restore manliness; it destroys what remains of it.

Conclusion: Self-Interest Versus True Manliness

Dubus's "Killings" is a story about two men acting out of selfish desires, each prompted by a sense that his own "rights" as a man have been violated: Strout believes his right to have his wife is violated by Matt's son; Matt believes his right to have peace is violated by Strout's freedom. Both resort to murder as a means of redressing this violated sense of entitlement — but in neither case does it truly work. Strout is punished (if not by the law, then by Matt), and Matt is punished by nature and soul, no longer his old self.

Whether either man is a genuine representative of masculinity and manliness is answered by the fact that neither operates in any capacity related to virtuous or good behavior. It is as though there is no guiding principle in these men's lives — only the principle of self-preservation, the principle of the herd, the principle of kill or be killed. While the "kill or be killed" mentality may seem virile, it is not applicable in this context: this is supposed to be a community — not a theater of war.

Works Cited

Dubus, Andre. "Killings." Web. 12 October 2015. <http://www.rehobothlibrary.org/images/02_Killings.pdf>