Analysis of "Under the Lions Paw"
Posted: Wednesday, July 05, 2006
by Ben Ganter
Southwest Mortgage
Deterministic Propaganda
Naturalist writers often promote a negative view of society focusing on the hardships the poor and uneducated face in everyday life. This deterministic view, used by many of the naturalist authors, disseminates a pessimistic outlook on human existence and is prevalent in the stories they write. The short story “Under the Lions Paw" written by Hamlin Garland illustrates his cynical vision of society by telling the heart-wrenching tale of a young farmer’s economic struggle against overwhelming odds. Appealing to the reader’s emotions, Garland successfully propagates his deterministic view by emphasizing the inherent hardships of the independent farmer, projecting class division between the have’s and the have not’s, and correlating land speculation with greed.
Garland further propagates his deterministic view by projecting a separation of class through cleverly placed descriptions that chronicle the disparity in lifestyles between the protagonist and antagonist, Mr. Haskins and Mr. Butler. In Garland’s description of Mr. Butler, he writes favorably of the hard work that led Butler to his present day financial stability, but cleverly injects the thought, “at this period of his life he earned all he got"(814). This statement suggests that Mr. Butler presently does not earn all he gets as he once did and that his current occupation of land speculation is somehow an exploitive occupation rather than actual work. He also takes the liberty to chronicle his hunting and fishing activities throughout the year, implying that he spends more time enjoying the finer things in life while his share croppers are forced to spend long hours scratching the earth to eke out a meager living, all the while enriching Mr. Butler. In one scene, Mr. Butler is found, “wearin’ out his pants on some salt barrel somewears"(815), further emphasizing the class separation between Mr. Butler and his sharecroppers. Mr. Butler is able to sit around chewing the fat with fellow friends while his poor sharecroppers are toiling at the back of a plow. Garland masterfully illustrates class division through creatively placed back-stories and descriptive caricatures further drawing in the reader and fine tuning his deterministic jargon.
Finally, Garland ensnares the reader in an emotional trap by correlating greed with land speculation. In the final scene, Mr. Butler is walking around the land he leased to Mr. Haskins on shares. Many improvements have been made and Mr. Haskins has done an incredible job of turning a run down farm into a top-notch producer. Mr. Haskins, high on emotion, with another successful season under his belt is now ready to talk seriously about setting up terms to buy the farm from Mr. Butler. Mr. Haskins is crushed when he learns the new asking price for the farm is more than double what Mr. Butler was willing to accept just three years ago. The clever way Garland tells the story makes it impossible not to feel a sense of voracity put forth by Mr. Butler. In the eyes of the reader, Mr. Butler has greedily raised the price of the farm by more than double knowing that Mr. Haskins will have little choice but to pay it or leave behind three years of hard work.
In some ways, it is easy to see why Mr. Haskins is so upset at the new price of the farm and why he feels he has been taken advantage of, but what is harder to see is the truth of the situation. The farm was available for half the amount just three years ago, but that was before Mr. Butler had equally gone into partnership with Mr. Haskins. Mr. Butler supplied him with land to raise crops and a home for his family all in the hopes of a good harvest. What if there would have been bad weather, insects had infested the crops or Mr. Haskins had been a bad farmer? The big loser would have been Mr. Butler, for it is his land and his home, and his repayment for its use squarely rests on the harvest. After three good years of harvest the farm is worth significantly more than it was just three years prior. Mr. Haskins had the opportunity to buy it three years ago but decided to do a test run on the land to see if he could make a go of it. He has gained not just a good farm and a good home for his family but the knowledge that the land he is currently using is well worth buying. All was made possible by the generosity of only one man, Mr. Butler, who took a chance on a penniless unknown farmer. Not only does Mr. Butler deserve gratitude but he also deserves a fair price on his farm.
The truth of the situation is cunningly glossed over by the artistic writing style of Hamlin Garland. As a reader, it is easy to feel all the pain and toil of Mr. Haskins and his family and relate to his feelings of betrayal. It is much harder to take a step back and look at the overall situation to gain the perspective of both men and their motivation when only one character’s situation is laid out in detail. Garland wittingly engages the reader’s emotional side by calling attention to the difficult challenges that the independent farmer faces, promoting class division and associating land speculation with greed. Garland uses these tools because it is much easier for one to react with emotion than to counter with perception.
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Top-level comments on this article: (7 total)Thanks!
Incredible analysis. Very helpful. -10th grade Language Arts teacherThank you for your great comment! I wrote this paper my second year of college. The professor assigned the task of reviewing different works and developing theories about the work not plainly stated in the text. I must admit it took hours of reading and research to develop this analysis. Glad it was helpful! Ben
This is absolutely terrible. Well written, and logically outlined. But very poorly conceived in contrast to any moral grounding.In Response to Sean from FL,Thank you for your comment on my paper. I don't see how this paper is ill conceived in moral grounding considering its simply a viewpoint. The character had the opportunity to buy the land at a discount in the beginning but he "chose" to just lease it to see how it goes. By doing so he put the risk of failure back on the land owner. Going in the farmer limited his risk in turn limiting his profit. Not a hard concept to grasp!
As a Saskatchewanite (just north of North Dakota) and farm raised, I am very impressed by this story I have just discovered. (I only knew of this writer Ben Ganter....as the author of the most favorite poem of my youth "Do you fear the wind"). I find it exciting to see the amount of emotion and reacton the story stirs up! I can see the Democrats and Republicans lining up on opposite sides of the fence....the social conscience guys vs the free enterprisers!
FYI - The farmer was turning the soil to prepare for spring. That's why he was out there toiling in the snow.
Very helpful in my high school American Studies class! I just have a quick question: Didn't Haskins put in his own money and tools into the farm? And if the farm failed, wouldn't it not really hurt Butler because the farm was already a failure to begin with? So, wouldn't that result in an unequal partnership and Haskins being the only one at risk to lose? I'm just a little confused at that part. Otherwise, really amazing anaylsis, that let me see the story in another way!As a sharecropper - this would have been customary. The only thing he uses that is not his own would be the land itself. The primary thrust of Garland's work is that Haskins is really the only one with anything to lose. Because Butler owns the land and presumably has other economic endeavors at work (perhaps other sharecroppers), this is a no lose proposition for him. Haskins supplies the work, the tools, the seed. If he succeeds, Butler gets a cut. If he doesn't, he breaks even at worst because he has no functioning capital invested in the first place.
You are exactly right. A sharecropper would have provided his own tools, his own labor, his own seed (perhaps, or most likely even, bought on credit).
Since Butler already owns the land and it isn't producing anything, it is essentially an inert investment for him. He neither profits nor loses anything from merely owning it, but by loaning it to Haskins, he can exploit Haskins' labor and before mentioned resources for profit and lose absolutely nothing should Haskins fail.
Garland's entire critique revolves around the point that Butler has nothing to lose from letting Haskins work the land, but Haskins has everything to lose should he fail.
Harrison, I wholeheartedly agree with your comment.
I have read the story by Garland as part of my AM. Lit 2 class in college. It is such a powerful story -- especially the part where Butler says "it is the law". He relies on the law to advance his own interest, exactly as today's corporate america is using our police departments as hired thugs.
This story is very similar, if not exact in some instances, to the sub-prime debacle. In short, banks were making millions on fees and interest-only mortgages with nothing to lose as was later revealed by the bail-outs and 16 trillion in secret loans they received from the FED. Essentially, swindling millions of first-time homeowners (not to mention the millions of investors) of their savings (in down-payments and/or astronomical closing costs). Wall-street /Bankers (speculators) are the lowest scumbags in our society. They are thieves with guaranteed immunity from government , another bunch of crooks and liars. And there is absolutely nothing average citizens can do.
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