Butch: A man in search of a dream

            I find the character Butch, the main male character in Meridel Le Sueur’s novel The Girl, to be very interesting.  The story takes place during the depression and Butch to me represents the search for, and failure to achieve the promise of the “American Dream” for people of that era.  Throughout the story Butch sees himself in competition with others for jobs, status and respect.  This is a realistic representation of the American economic system.  In America we are in competition with each other for jobs, promotions, offices, etc.  Butch realizes this and accepts it and sets out to work hard and be a winner.  He feels that it is only natural for him to beat others both physically and professionally because this is the way that society is set up and Butch wants to be on top, “I’ll show you how to be winning,” he tells the girl (5).  “Stand by me baby and they’ll roll for me.  Muscle and prayer and a girl like you and what can stop you” (5).  “…I’m gonna buy a service station of my own.  Be my own man.  You better go with me I’m a winner” (7).  

             In Butch’s view if you are good and a winner then you will succeed.  If you fail then it is your own fault.  After receiving a letter from her father the girl tells Butch, “It seems like my father was born to fail, he was mixed up in more kind of failing than you can shake a stick at” (26).  “He was just no good,” Butch replies (26).  This is also a good representation of the American way of life.  Here is America anyone who is willing to work hard is supposed to be able to succeed no matter how low a station in life they may start.  That’s what the “American Dream” is all about; anyone can succeed, if they are willing to work hard.   

             Butch is used Ms. Le Sueur to represent the pursuit of the American dream from a working class point of view.  In the beginning of the story Butch believes that a man, even from the working class, who works hard has a chance at the dream.  He believes that a workingman has a right to be proud, “Did you know I put plows together, yes sir welding, a sweet job and you saw the whole plow when it was put together and you felt proud” (6).  As the story progresses Butch realizes that he doesn’t have any money to start the service station, “We ain’t even got a place to go.  Even if you would go with me we ain’t got a gopher hole, a fox hole, we got nothing,” he tells the girl (10).

             Butch tries to work hard for what he wants and is proud of it.  He and his brother Bill get jobs scabbing, because they are the only jobs they can get.  Butch and Bill are willing to do anything to get back to work.  The first day at work Butch gets beat-up and Bill is shot and killed by the regular workers who are striking.  When Bill dies Butch tells the girl, “Now I know what I got to do.  Now I know it” (21), I think that this is the first indication that Butch is considering robbing the bank with Ganz.  At this point Butch seems to realize that it is going to take more than hard work to get ahead.  Butch wants to rob the bank so that he can buy that service station.  For him the service station represents the realization of the dream.  With the service station he will not be a worker dependant on a boss, but instead will be independent and in control of his own destiny.

             With the hard work not paying off, Butch becomes inpatient and hooks up with Ganz for the robbery.  Ganz is very successful at this point compared to all the other characters in the story.  Butch sees Ganz as everything that he is not.  Ganz has money, respect and power and Butch is tired of waiting.  “Your boy here, he’s all right.  He’s a nice boy.  If he does like I say you’ll both be sitting pretty, take my word for it,” Ganz tells the girl (53).  If times had been better I don’t think that Butch would have robbed the bank.  I think he would have stuck to hard work to achieve his goals.  During the drive to the country after the robbery Butch tells the girl, “…standing by them pillars before we went in, when that girl went by, there was a few seconds there, I could of walked out then, we could of lived our lives like you wanted.  I could of walked out of there then” (88).

             When the girl and Butch stop for gas after their get away Butch comes face to face with his dream.  The station is everything that he had wanted for himself, “this is a swell place you got here,” (89) Butch tells the owner.  The man tells Butch how he put everything he had into the place so that he could be his own boss, a big shot; and now the oil company is going to take it all away.  “How can they do that,” Butch asks, “didn’t you get a lease on it” (89)?  The man tells Butch that he does have a lease but that the whole thing is a racket.  They got it fixed so you can’t succeed no matter how hard you try.  When you can’t go on any longer then they take it away and bring in another guy to start all over with.  “ Oh, the Goddamned dirty bastards.  They got you coming and going.  They got you” (89).  Butch realizes that it is all a racket, the ones with the power always take advantage of the ones that don’t.  They had dangled a carrot in front of his face knowing he would never get it.

Richard Lilly

Works cited.        

Le Sueur, Meridel. The Girl. NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1978.

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