Thursday, October 11, 2007

Locust - Holsepp's funeral home/chapel

Even death is a charade in "Day of the Locust." Mrs. Johnson puts on a show after Harry's death, comforting Faye in order to sell her to an undertaker for two hundred dollars. The funeral, too, is described as though it's a scene from a movie, with a carefully scripted eulogy and Faye's charmingly overbearing emotions—she makes sure to "increase the tempo of her sobs" when it's her turn to look into her father's coffin. Mrs. Johnson complains about the shoddy sets upon finding that the coffin handles aren't really bronze. The back rows of the chapel are filled with human vultures, waiting for "a dramatic incident of some sort"—they're there to see the show, and like unruly cinema patrons, when the "show" fails to deliver they sit in "vicious, acrid boredom that tremble[s] on the edge of violence" (121).

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