Day of the Locust

Chris Phillips Professor Kirkpatrick English 1C march 31, 2010 Hollywood Illusions In The day of the Locust by Nathanael westernmost, illusion verse line ingenuousness is wholeness of the briny themes of the novel. Hollywood is known for its acting, barely the town and everyone t get into inhibit it distinguishm to get carried a behavior with trying to be almostthing they arent. Nothing is really indigenous in Hollywood and everything is borrowed from another place. The houses boast been designed to look kindred Irish cottages, Spanish villas, or gray plantations while the characters often imagine themselves as someone other than who they really are. unaccompanied states, The fat lady in the yachting cap was firing shopping, not boating the human cosmoss in the Norfolk jacket and Tyrolean hat was returning, not from a mountain, but an insurance office and the girl in slacks and sneaks with a bandana around her head had just remaining a switchboard, not a tennis cour t (60). west shows us that Hollywood is filled with fantasies and dreams rather than reality, which merchantman best be seen by dint of characters such as vex and Faye Greener. bother acts as if he has had a long and successful career as a star, when in reality he is just a washed up clown. narks put-on act is used to sell his shoe polish.Harry knows that no one really wants to buy his shoe polish but he thinks that he is still a great actor and also realizes that lot wont go out of their bearing to punish a clown. But clowning becomes compulsive because he acts in his every sidereal day life. Harry is so caught up in his illusion that it ends up killing him. He becomes really pallid but can just think and respond in basis of consummation. While playing faint, he shockingly discovers that he really is faint. Having role-played so much, he can no longer tell when he is acting pain and feeling pain, feign suffering and really suffering.Though Harrys ail ment is real, he continues to put on his act. After offering Harry some water Tod states, Harry framed the word no with his lips, consequently groaned skillfully. It was a second-act curtain groan, so phony that Tod had to hide a smile. And yet the old mans pallor hadnt come from a box (119). The only way Harry knows to express suffering is by exaggeratedly pretending it. Tod was often at the Greeners house to dish the sore man, but it was hard to distinguish how in pain the old man really was.It seemed like another one of his clown acts, where being in pain is what made the act so funny. Even as Harry is dying, he wonders to himself whether he was acting or actually sick. Like her dad Faye is caught up in the dreams and fantasies of Hollywood. Faye thinks shes a big time photo star when in fact she has only been an extra with a unretentive reveal in a movie. She even believes she is too good for guys like Tod and can only be with someone who is rich and handsome. Faye is the relate of obse ssional sexual fantasies of all the males in the novel.She is an unloving woman and provides Tod with many sexual and violent fantasies. Tod begins to realize that Fayes main goal is to lead men on with her performances. Fayes sexual gestures became to a greater extent of a formal greeting that she used very often. Her secret smiles and the way she acted were used to get whatever she wanted. She never fooled anyone though, but it was alright with them. West writes, His interest in her grew despite the things she said and he continued to reign her very exciting. Had any other girl been so affected, he would sustain thought her intolerable.Fayes affectations, however, were so completely artificial that he gear up them charming. Being with her was like being backstage during an amateurish, ridiculous play (103). They were utterly content watching what seemed like an amateur show, just by being with her. Even when Harry dies, Faye, who has been treating him meanly, decides to act li ke the devoted daughter. She provides a square-toed funeral and decides to become a call girl for Mrs. Jennings in order to apply for it. Everything from the people to the town itself seems to be fake and not what everyone expects when they think of Hollywood.Wests theme of illusion verse reality is shown with Faye always spunky free to continue in her fantasies, or Harry not shrewd what he feels because clownishly playing his disguised self, the Greeners show that for compulsive masqueraders little trustworthy life is possible. Faye and Harry stir the audience sympathetic for them. They just seem so pathetic at times that its hard to not feel bad for them. Tod, Homer and many of Fayes other suitors, went along with her poor acting because she was beautiful yet pathetic. West says, Raging at him, she was still beautiful.That was because her beauty was structural like a trees, not a quality of her mind or heart (126). They all loved her for what they maxim on the outside, not her stuck up ways and wild stories. For all of the characters in Wests novel, they are acting on an every day basis without even realizing it. Harry acts in pain to get attention. He pretends to need help from sympathetic people and then he tells them the brainsick stories of when he was famous. His illusions are then backed up by his lovesome beliefs that he really was a good actor.If we look at Faye we see how she also has a very strong and misconstrued idea of reality. She believes she will one day be famous and in her everyday life, she acts like she already is. She bosses the men around, has to be the center of attention, and uses people to pay for her and get her ahead. Her day-by-day acting and stage acting has become almost the same, as she makes everything dramatic. in all of Hollywood is her stage as she acts out her life. Faye does a little break then her father when it comes to acting because she uses her beauty to get ahead. Her beauty helps the men forget how del usional she is when she speaks.Harry has nothing to use to his advantage notwithstanding being old, and being Fayes father, which gives him the company of Fayes suitors. Fayes suitors help Harry and listen to his nonsense just so they can be close to Faye. The Greeners are so confused in their ideas of illusion versus reality that they will never get anywhere close to their dreams. Harry died the clown he always was, while Faye ended up stuck in her fantasies. Neither got what they wanted or expected from Hollywood. The city that was supposed to make all their dreams come true failed. The Greeners showed us very all the way the line between illusion and reality.Throughout the novel we saw Harry and Faye act their way through their life. Everyone around them was just a part of the play. Tod and Homer had front and center seats to see the Greeners perform. The performance was sad but amusing for the audience. In the end, the play didnt maintain a happy ending for anyone but the rid e along the way proved to be full of surprises, pain, disappointment, and challenges. Faye and Harry although unsuccessful during their time in Hollywood showed everyone the problems with never facing reality. The truth of reality would have stand them.If they saw just as everyone else did, that they were the have-nots in society, they might have changed. preferably Tod was the only one in the novel who changed. His change can be attributed to the Greeners and their acting. Through them, Tod finally felt sympathy and became a better person. Faye and Harry were constant throughout The Day of the Locust, which led them to despair. The Greeners constant masquerading eventually became the fall of them, leading to reality. Work Cited West, Nathanael. Miss Lonelyhearts & the Day of the Locust. New York New Directions Book, 2009. Print.