Gabriel

Johnnie and Roy both seem very scared of Gabriel at the beginning of “The Rockpile.” When the two boys are sitting on the fire escape and oy decides to go down to the street, Johnnie’s response is that “Daddy’s going to be home soon” (Baldwin 17). Later on in the story, we see Gabriel coming home from work, all we know at this point is that it is somewhere high up in the church, and how fearful Johnnie is about telling him how Roy got injured. When Gabriel enters he is comforting to Roy, and we begin to see that he favors Roy, and is immediately critical of both Johnnie and Elizabeth for letting this happen. At the very end we find out that some of the tension between Gabriel and Elizabeth is over her sinful past and that Johnnie is her child but not his. In her last look at Gabriel Elizabeth sees a “hatred so deep as to become insupportable in its lack of personality” (Baldwin 25). And we are left with an ambiguous ending with Johnnie leaning down towards Gabriel’s foot to pick up a lunchbox.

            By the end of “The Rockpile” our image of Gabriel is not a good one. He seems like an overbearing father figure who enjoys holing his authority over the rest of the family. He seems to like Roy much more than Johnnie because Johnnie is not actually his child and uses Elizabeth’s past against her. In the private sphere of their home there is a lot of tension and distance between them as the boys always fear their father coming home. There is also constant language of religion to qualify the world around them, adding to the fear that anything they do wrong will cause them to be condemned.

            Our view of Gabriel is complicated in “The Outing” where we see more interactions between Gabriel and his sons, this time in the public sphere. Because they are now in public, Gabriel can do less to discipline Roy and Johnnie than he could at home. There is a conversation between Gabriel and Johnnie where Johnnie can be more outspoken and obvious about his hatred for Gabriel without immediate consequences. However, Gabriel does threaten that there will be punishment at home when they are alone. We also see that the favoritism that Gabriel has for Roy is more pronounced and is now resented by both Roy and Johnnie. Gabriel says that David was brought to church by Roy when the boys all know that it was Johnnie. When David looks at Roy and Johnnie their faces show how much this affects them, “Roy, who considered his father with an expression at once contemptuous, ironic and resigned and at Johnnie, whose face was a mask of rage” (Baldwin 34). They all know that Gabriel has a favorite and they all resent him for it.

            However, we also see a different side of Gabriel when he is talking with Father James. We see here that he is a Deacon in the church, not as high as it had seemed in “The Rockpile” and that he is hoping to preach sometime. In this scene he seems much less powerful and less domineering as he speaks humbly with Father James. Father James tells him not to try to advance to quickly and that he should “Try to get just a little closer to the people” (Baldwin 42). In this scene we see that he is not always as overbearing as it seems, but Father James’ last remark also fits with the effect that he had had on the conversation between Roy, Johnnie, and David’s parents. Gabriel just doesn’t seem to be able to have a normal conversation that shows understanding to the people he is talking to.

Teddy

            The story “Teddy” by J.D. Salinger ends with “an all-piercing, sustained scream--clearly coming from a small, female child” (Salinger 198). This scream is never explained and we never find out for sure what has happened to end the story. However, there are clues to a possible ending where Teddy is pushed into the empty pool by his sister and fractures his skull on the bottom of the pool, dying instantly. While there is no way to tell for sure whether this is the correct interpretation of the final scene, Teddy himself describes a similar scene and this is likely what Nicholson is thinking.

            Teddy explains to Nicholson that he thinks everyone takes death too seriously and that they shouldn’t be worried because they have all done it thousands of times before. He says,

“It's so silly," Teddy said again. "For example, I have a swimming lesson in about five minutes. I could go downstairs to the pool, and there might not be any water in it. This might be the day they change the water or something. What might happen, though, I might walk up to the edge of it, just to have a look at the bottom, for instance, and my sister might come up and sort of push me in. I could fracture my skull and die instantaneously." Teddy looked at Nicholson. "That could happen," he said. "My sister's only six, and she hasn't been a human being for very many lives, and she doesn't like me very much. That could happen, all right. What would be so tragic about it, though? What's there to be afraid of, I mean? I'd just be doing what I was supposed to do, that's all, wouldn't I?"

            Teddy lays out an elaborate scene of his own death and explains how it wouldn’t be tragic if it actually happened. Teddy has just explained to Nicholson that he could’ve told the professors when and how they were going to die, but hadn’t because he knew that it would upset them. Instead, he just told them some possibilities and times when they should be careful. Similarly, he never tells anyone when he is going to die, but says that he knows. This detailed description of how he could die could actually be his prediction of how he will die disguised in a way that will not alarm Nicholson. Teddy wants to tell Nicholson something but not actually reveal that he will probably die that day.

            In addition to this conversation with Nicholson, Teddy writes in his diary that “It will either happen today or February 14, 1955 when I am sixteen. It is ridiculous to mention even” (Salinger 182). This entry is not explained or elaborated in any way and we are not given any clues as to what it means. However, looking back, it is quite possible that this entry is referring to Teddy’s own death. We know from Teddy’s conversation with Nicholson that Teddy can predict his own death but that his prediction is not completely inevitable. We also know that he doesn’t think that death is very important. He only sees death as getting out of your body and moving on, something that everyone has done thousands of times even though they don’t remember it. This indifference to death could help explain his last sentence in the entry that it is ridiculous to mention.

            While we don’t know for sure what happens in the pool at the very end of the story. It is quite possible that Teddy has predicted his own death and that this prediction has come true. Teddy mentions this prediction in a way that doesn’t make it seem especially important or true. But Teddy also says that he doesn’t tell people fully what will happen because it will upset people. His journal entry saying that something will probably happen today and his detailed explanation to Nicholson make it seem like he does know that he is going to die and that he has most likely been pushed into the empty pool by his sister.