The Hamlet

Eula Varner is introduced in depth in these chapters, the main representation of femininity and sexuality in the novel. Her appearance is suggestive of “some symbology out of the old Dionysic times—honey in sunlight and bursting grapes, the writhen bleeding of the crushed fecundated vine beneath the hard rapacious trampling goat-hoof” (95). This description connects Eula to imagery of plenty, of harvest and consumption, waste, and the rampant sexuality of Grecian satyrs, bringing to light one of the other key themes of The Hamlet—The Waste of Potential in Frenchman’s Bend. Eula as a child, “did nothing. She might as well still have been a foetus” (96), any life within her seemingly wasted. Though she appears to waste her own potential through indolence, her behavior matches the way the men in her life view her—as a symbol of the family’s status and as a bargaining chip to be exchanged at the right time for an advantageous marriage. Her remarkable passivity, evident from an early age, symbolizes the degree to which her whole community treats her as an object. The theme of waste is also seen in the descriptions of Eula that connect her to the natural world. These descriptions involve fruit fallen from the vine and fruit swarmed by insects. The implication is that the natural splendor of Eula is being left to waste and rot.

The schoolmaster Labove’s pursuit of Eula is obsessive, self-destructive, and predatory—the most grotesque manifestation of the predatory male interest that follows Eula wherever she goes. Labove is reminiscent of the “rapacious trampling goat-hoof” of the satyr, a creature traditionally linked to boundless male sexual appetite that often resorts to sexual assault. Like Eula’s brother Jody, Labove perceives Eula’s attractiveness and fertility as an evil temptation to draw men in. He watches Eula for years, fantasizing about her and about hurting her, angry that he can’t see a reaction to his fantasies. When these fantasies become actualized in the form of a sexual assault, he is plunged into self-hatred. Despite craving the violence he feels is coming to him in the wake of the attempted assault, Labove flees town, unable to accept being in the presence of Eula or anything connected to her. The violent desire and aversion men feel for Eula shows the distaste these men have for anything they can’t control.

Even as they follow her around, trying to get her attention, the men who pursue Eula develop violent urges and fantasies. When they depart the Varner house, they ride their horses to the nearby creek, where they “fight silently and savagely and wash the blood off in the water and mount again and ride their separate ways […] freed even of rage and frustration and desire” (131). Like Labove, these younger men desire Eula obsessively, and just as obsessively they hate her for stirring their desire. Men’s obsessively negative feelings toward Eula also manifest within Jody, this time in the form of paranoia and family pride. His reaction to her pregnancy is violent and enraged, yelling at his father, “Maybe you dont give a damn about your name, but I do. I got to hold my head up before folks even if you aint” (143). Jody has nothing, in truth, to hold his head up over. His anger over Eula is anger over his inability to control her sexuality.

This violence contrasts with Flem’s cold and uninterested reaction to Eula. Even as he marries her, it is evident that Flem does not feel the same violent lust for her as the other men around her feel. This absence is not filled by love or respect—Flem simply does not care about Eula, only marrying her after being offered financial incentive by Varner. His marriage is as emotionless and calculated as any of Flem’s schemes, and, fittingly, he is just as absent from it. His consummate invisibility still makes itself known. The marriage occurs outside of the town, the couple immediately heading off to Texas for their honeymoon, no one in Frenchman’s Bend finding out until after the fact. Eula is lost to them, with most not having known her as a person to be lost in the first place.