People in Hell Just Want A Drink of Water- presentation

People in Hell Just Want A Drink of Water  offers a revisionist interpretation of the mythology of the west and western settlement through the way Proulx makes no attempt to glorify the west, the descriptions used do not make the west seem desirable nor glamorous, as is the case with so many western films that were made in Hollywood between 1930 and 1960, the result being that this is essentially a story of tragedy. Rood argues that In People in Hell it is almost as though Proulx has created the landscape as the first character, which is harsh and unforgiving, setting the scene for the rest of the story, throughout which it becomes evident that the landscape has shaped the personalities of the other characters. In many films made within the western genre, you get the typical image of monument valley and a spectacular blue open sky, which has the effect of making it look as though it is a harsh environment to live and work in, but so many of the films are presented in a way by which it is not made obvious that the characters actually do live a hard life. However in People in Hell Just Want A Drink of Water, it seems to be that Proulx has made no attempt to conform to the expectations of the western genre. The stories of both the families in People in Hell are given a grimy reality, and the very opening of the story gives you the immediate realisation that it is not going to be an epic western adventure, through the description of the landscape in which the story is set. 

‘You stand there, braced. Cloud shadows race over the buff rocks stacks as a projected film, casting a queasy mottled ground rash. The air hisses and it is no local breeze but the great harsh sweep of wind from the turning of the earth. The wild country- indigo jags of mountains, grassy plains everlasting, tumbled stones like fallen cities, the flaring of rolling sky- provokes a spiritual shudder. It is like a deep note that cannot be heard but is felt, it is like a claw in the gut’. 

The use of such detailed descriptions here differs from the expectation of a western story because Proulx shows the reader the reality of the setting, and the description used here does not paint a picture that welcomes you to the west, but makes you realise that it was a very diverse and challenging landscape. 

The story is set in a time which is after the frontier was declared finished, and once most Indians had been put into reservations, so here the settlement of the west did not come with conflict, but the characters experience more of a struggle with the harsh environment more than anything.

 Throughout the story the male characters are portrayed in a way that presents a different type of masculinity to what we have seen so often in western film and tv. In the 1956 John Wayne film, The Searchers, the male protagonist, Ethan is presented as very masculine, but in more of an attractive way, as  the lone hero, who does not need a family around him, and through this he is seen as strong and as the all american hero. Whereas in People in Hell Just Want A Drink of Water, the male characters are not presented in this same style, they tend to be presented in a way that does not glorify the western settlement. The father of the Dunmire family, Isaac 'Ice', sets in motion the expectation of males throughout the story, which is why it comes as quite a shock that the men of the Tinsley family are so different,  and when they are first introduced, they are described as ‘a different kind’. The first section of the story about the Dunmire’s, show the entire family to be masculine, calling the children, who are all boys ‘hen-wranglers’, which could be seen to demonstrate the children are only there for one purpose, and that is to work and bring in money, whilst Naomi Dunmire appears to just be there to give Ice children, who he can use for labour. Ice ends up with nine boys, who he describes as ‘money in the bank’ and were ‘brought up to fill his labour needs’. In that sense, it can be argued that the Dunmire family actually does conform to the myth of the west and western settlement in the sense that the men are the hard workers, whilst the mother in the Dunmire family is just that, a mother and nothing else, having had his children, 'as quick as she could stand to make them' then left him in 1913. From this I get the impression that despite Ice’s hard work and determination to work the land, these are not attributes that are found attractive by Naomi, who perhaps needed something more than the Isaac’s supposed masculinity. 

Mr Tinsley appears to be a polar opposite of Mr Dunmire. Where Mr Dunmire’s family travel westward with the expectation of hard work, Mr Tinsley is not prepared at all for the harsh reality of being a rancher in the west. ‘Horm Tinsley had come up from St. Louis with the expectation of quick success’. His character is incompetent and is seen as much more caring and nurturing towards his children than his wife is, and is therefore seen as much less masculine than Mr Dunmire and certainly is not the image of a tough western rancher. 

Throughout the story it becomes evident that Wyoming is supposed to be representative of masculinity, because the hard work required to thrive there is work that can only be carried out by men who are willing to embrace their masculinity. Ras Tinsley who leaves Wyoming to explore the wider world and find more for his life, is seen to have missed out on his chance to develop his masculinity, purely for the reason that he did not spend his whole life in Wyoming so was not forced to embrace the hardships of Wyoming in the same way that the son’s of Mr Dunmire were. Ras only returns to Wyoming having been involved in an automobile accident leaving him in a very bad way. And once he is back in Wyoming, he is subject to criticism from the other people in the community. Through this it can be inferred that the implications of the western lifestyle can not be escaped, hence why Ras was forced to return to Wyoming.

In this story Proulx shows movement away from the myth of the west purely because of the time in which it is set. Though the year at the end of the story is not made clear, we know that it is either in the late 1930s or 1940s because of the mention of the years of the depression. It is set in a well established community of people, who are very set in their ways, and are not comfortable with people who they think do not fit their expectations of men, such as Ras, who is young and deformed and wants to express his masculinity in a dark way. 

The archetype of the western genre was visualised by Hollywood for so many years throughout the 20th century, and it tended to portray women in a way that had a clear association with civilisation, whilst the men tended to be associated with wildness and sometimes savagery. This stereotype is made completely null and void in the writing of Proulx in People in Hell, in which the females are not presented in the same motherly, nurturing way as they so often have been. One major example of this in the story is when Mrs. Tinsley quite literally got rid of her baby, whilst they are travelling westward, she could not take the listening to her baby crying anymore so she ‘stood up and hurled the crying infant into the water’. This is completely unexpected and comes as a great shock, and because of this, she is presented as savage and uncaring. However, after this event she becomes anxious take better care of her other children almost as a way of justifying killing her baby to herself and Arosteguy states that she ‘fails in the most basic maternal role of protecting her children’. Mrs Tinsley was already an unstable person prior to killing her infant, and goes onto be overly protective of her remaining children, ‘tying them to chairs in the kitchen lest they wonder outside and come to harm’, going from one extreme to the other. This can be seen to go against the western myth as Mrs Tinsley was unable to cope with the experience of travelling west and because of this proves to be completely incapable of being a proper mother, so we do not see her at all to be representative of civilisation. Another example of this is also seen in Naomi Dunmire who leaves her husband and children, showing no care for what happens to them.

I think that the quote which I found struck me most when I read this story, was the very last line, which reads ‘We are in a new millennium and such desperate things no longer happen. If you believe that you’ll believe anything’, this is in reference to the Dunmire’s castrating Ras and leaving him to die. I think this ties in quite nicely with the quote at the beginning that says ‘reality’s never been of much use out here’, because the Dunmire’s actions show just how isolated Wyoming was and how things were changing around them, but were not willing to accept difference and change. It is almost as though they did this to Ras because he had experienced life outside of Wyoming and they were afraid of things that they had not experienced themselves.

Overall, I think that People in Hell Just Want A Drink of Water shows very well a new approach to the western genre, and does very much so offer a revisionist interpretation of the west and the western settlement mainly through the landscape and also through the characterisation of the men. This story offers a very different version of masculinity, the portrayal of which in Hollywood, acted as a defining feature of the western genre, and subsequently, contributed to the myth of the west.