In Andre Dubus III’s memoir, Townie: A Memoir, Andre tells a story about his childhood and his
experiences growing up; specifically his struggle with violence and how he
eventually overcame it. The memoir contains a strong theme of violence and how
it affected his life style and choices. In essence, Andre, the character in the
memoir rather than the grown up and matured author, is a case study for
violence in regards to how at a certain point in his life, he was completely
taken over and consumed by it. Throughout the story, Andre’s attitude towards
violence shifts from fearing it, to becoming consumed by it, and finally, to
freeing himself from it. Another character similar to Andre was Micky Ward from
the 2010 award winning movie, The Fighter,
directed by David O. Russel. Micky Ward followed in the footsteps of his older
brother and became a professional boxer, yet struggled with making a decision
between his family and what he believed to be his career. In the end, Micky is
able to find salvation and make the right decision. Both Andre and Micky dealt
with similar struggles and were able to eventually overcome them.
One of the main themes in Andre Dubus’ novel is
violence and how Andre eventually overcomes it. For a majority of his
childhood, Andre’s father was not present in his life; he sent the child support
checks and showed up occasionally to see the kids, but for the most part, Andre’s
mother raised them herself. As a single mother caring for three children,
paying rent was a difficulty and the family never stayed in one place for long.
Because of that, Andre and his sibling were always the new kids in the area and
they always ended up being the ones that others took pleasure in bullying.
After multiple incidences, one situation with his brother, Jeb, finally pushed
Andre over the edge and influenced him into doing something about it. Jeb came
home from school one day to Tommy J. waiting on him to beat him up. Andre
narrates, “…Tommy J. had beaten up my brother and called my mother a whore. And
what had I done? I’d pleaded with him. I’d called him Tommy and pleaded…I stood in front of the sink and
the mirror. I was almost surprised to see someone standing there. This kid with
a smooth face and not one whisker, this kid with long brown hair pulled back in
a ponytail, , this kid with narrow shoulders and soft arm and chest muscles and
no balls. This kid had no balls. I
looked into his eyes: I don’t care if you
get your face beat in, I don’t care if you get kicked in the head or stabbed or
even shot, I will never allow you not to fight back ever again. You hear me?”
(Dubus 78).
It was at this point in his life that fourteen
year old Andre began his descent into violence. He immediately began working
out and building muscle with an impressive amount of commitment, a commitment
that some may even consider unhealthy because of his motive and his resulting
thirst for violence and lack of self-preservation. He said, “I don’t know if it
was having others beside me, or that we were united in our rage, but I felt
little fear, only a heart-thumping, dry-mouthed desire to hurt somebody, really
hurt someone” (Dubus 93). As can be
seen by this quote, Andre’s attitude had completely changed in a short period
of time to the point where not only did he stop shying away from violence, but
he started to revel in it and seek it out like a drug.
In the latter half of the memoir after Dubus began
reading the works of Marx and Engels and Weber, he learned about the history of
societies and class struggles and he began to understand society at a deeper
level. Eventually, he began writing and in a sense, writing was Andre’s
salvation. After he wrote his first short story, he says, “I felt more like
me than I ever had, as if the years I’d lived so far had formed layers of skin
and muscle over myself that others saw as me when the real one had been
underneath all along, and writing—even writing badly—had peeled away those
layers, and I knew then that if I wanted to stay this awake and alive, if I
wanted to stay me, I would have to keep writing” (Dubus 259). Andre admits that
writing was what he was meant to do and it was who he was. It was a part of him
that had lay undiscovered for years until he finally chanced upon it and
discovered its value to him.
In present-day Andre’s talk with FYSH classes, Andre mentioned that most
of his friends and/or people he knew from when he was younger and violent were
now either locked up in jail or dead, and he admitted that if he had not
discovered writing, that he would have ended up just like them. There was even
a passage in the memoir where Andre visits a jail and he recognizes someone he
used to know and the public affairs man showing him around said to him, “‘Yeah?
Good story about him.’ And [he] told me how two or
three Thanksgivings ago, all four Murphy brothers were in at the same time,
some awaiting a hearing or trial, others serving a sentence. ‘And Frankie, the bank
robber—he’s dead now…” (Dubus 381). The man he saw in the prison that day is
only one example of the countless others that he knew that ended up dead or in
jail because of destructive decisions that they had made in their lives. The
impact writing had on Andre’s life was so extreme that it changed his outlook
and completely turned his life around by changing it for the better.
An
extremely important part of the memoir, a part that Andre still considers one
of the most important parts in his life, tested his new outlook on life and
really showed how much he had changed. On a return trip to London, Andre and
his wife Liz were in a train car full of elderly and school girls when a group
of street thugs started making their way through the car on their way to the
next car over, where they were meeting a drug dealer. Being the only young man
in the car, it fell to Andre to deal with the men, who were very clearly
scaring the young girls who were trying to sleep. Instead of picking a fight
with the men, Andre used his words to explain to the men how he was simply trying to keep the girls
safe, making them understand that he was doing exactly what the men would be doing
in his place. Eventually, when the dealer realized who was responsible for
chasing away his clients, he came to confront Andre, very much intending to
start a violent fight. It is at this moment when Andre has his moment of truth:
“In the
pale fluorescence from the cars, with his long hair and sideburns, the narrow
face and deep eyes, he was every street-tough I ‘d ever known: he was Cody
Perkins about to knock out Sully; he was Clay Whelan just before he chased me
down; he was Kenny V. punching me while Ricky J. beat on Cleary; he was Dennis
Murphy slapping the old lady with the thin branch; he was Tommy J. Walking away
from my bleeding brother, and he was Steve Lynch the second before I threw my
first punch. Except now I wasn’t going to throw a punch, even if the dealer was
to step away from the wall and square off to shut me up; I wasn’t going to
fight him either, and it was as if in my explanation to him, I had stood
between those trains and taken off all my clothes, then began to pull away
every muscle I’d ever built: I ripped off the plate of my pectorals, dropping
them at my feet. I reached up to each shoulder and unhooked both deltoids and
let them fall, too; then I reached around for the muscles of my upper back, the
first to show up years earlier, and dropped them at the feet of the dark
dealer, speaking to him all along as if I’d never learned to do anything but
talk, as if this armor I’d forged had never been needed because I could trust
the humanity of the other to show itself. Trust.
I was going to trust this stranger, this man who had entered my train car and
not to talk. I was going to trust him to see and to listen and to do the right
thing…No armor, no sword” (Dubus 357-8).
In that moment,
Andre had a moment of self-realization of the new person that he had become;
the person that knew his physical capabilities, yet knew how to use his words
because that was the wisest thing to do. He opened up not only to the dealer,
but also to himself in that defining moment of his life where he most
definitely could have used violence to end the conflict, but his attitude had
changed enough for him to know that violence would not do nothing to improve
the situation.
Another interesting
character, slightly similar to Andre, and in a vaguely similar struggle as
Andre is Micky Ward, from David O. Russel’s 2010 Oscar-winning film, The Fighter. In The Fighter, Micky Ward strives to advance his career in boxing,
but struggles with the decision between choosing his family or a reputed
business to do so. His brother, Dicky Ward, the once “Pride of Lowell” had been
his coach since the very beginning, but Dicky was also a crack addict and not
the most reliable of people, yet Micky stayed with him out of a sense of
familial loyalty. Micky’s mother was also his manager and helped schedule and
keep track of his matches and winnings. Basically, boxing was almost like a
family business, but after a certain point, with Dicky succumbing to his
addiction, Micky’s career was starting to suffer. So when Micky was offered to
be supported by a larger corporation that could promise to give him quality
training with state-of-the-art equipment, training, coaches, and other
resources, Micky struggled with making the decision because of his loyalty to
his family, and his family’s belief that the businessmen cared for only that:
business, and that they would not help him out as selflessly as his own family
would. Micky still chose to accept the corporation’s offer, but in the end, he
realized his mistake and found salvation by accepting both his family’s help
and the professionals’ help. While violence
was a central part to both Micky’s and Andre’s stories, with Micky, the
struggle was more about balancing his family and career, while with Andre, it
was about his new found hobby, and current career, saving him from violence.
Today, as he is reflecting on his past, Andre
talked about how he forgave everyone who had ever harmed him, and that if he
were to run into anyone that he had ever harmed, that he would apologize to
them, but one thing he did say was that if he ever ran into the man who raped
his sister, he would kill her. And that again, is an important reflection on
Andre’s attitude towards violence. It has been years since he gave up violence,
even swearing to himself that he would never yell at his children, and years
for him to come to terms with himself, even forgiving everyone who had harmed
him when he was younger, but his love for his family is strong enough that if
he were to ever run into his sister’s rapist, he would kill him in a heartbeat.
Throughout his life, Andre’s attitude towards
violence shifted considerably, from a point where he was victimized by it, to when
it influenced him into making a difference, to consuming him, and finally to
him freeing himself of it through writing. Andre’s life was a journey of
learning and acceptance and although violence was a negative part of his life,
it ultimately makes him who he is today.
