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A lot of things are happening now, in pretty rapid succession now in From Here to Eternity. I was going to talk about Maggio's plan first, but before that, holy cow, Bloom killing himself? Completely out of left field. His whole POV that chapter is a bit of a wild ride, actually, because we know so many of the events from Prewitt's perspective. And Prewitt, well, he's a very different guy.
In the chapter where he and Bloom fight, Prewitt is actually pretty put out at the idea he fought bloom for racial reasons (Bloom's a Jew), explaining instead the reason he felt they both had to fight:
"He had fought Bloom because he had to fight somebody, or else bite himself and go mad, the same reason Bloom had fought him, two men who were on the edge and ridden raw..."
"...Fighting each other, because it was so much easier than trying to find the real enemy to fight, because the real enemy the common enemy was so hard to find since you did not know what it was to look for it and could not see it to get your hands on it, so you fought each other, which was easier..."
I've cut out a bit, but that's the essence of Prew's reason: He's having a terrible time, and since he can't physically confront or even really grasp the one true evil driving his problems (if that evil even exists), he just went for the first guy who annoyed him and agreed to punch it out with him when provoked. Not shokingly healthy, but, well, this is a guy who's schooling ground to a halt when his mom died at the age of twelve. Robert E Lee "Healthy coping mechanisms" Prewitt this guy is not.
He goes on to comment their fight was a draw, at best, and Prewitt's own loss, at worst, since Bloom was able to fight him, and then turn around and win a professional ring match right after.
Bloom, meanwhile, looks back on his fight with Prewitt as a total failure, and another sign he is incapable of escaping his own Jewishness, which he's convinced everyone hates him for:
"He didn't have what it took. He never had what it took. Prewitt had whipped him, hands down."
"You could only hope they would forget about it just so long. Eventually, it all caught up with you, and you had to come back to it again, that you were Isaac Nathan Bloom, and that Isaac Nathan Bloom was a Jew, and that everybody else knew it, too."
Reading through the chapter, it comes across less like everybody hates him, as Bloom himself believes, and more like he hates himself, so much so that he's incapable of understanding the world outside of that self-loathing.
In the chapter where he and Bloom fight, Prewitt is actually pretty put out at the idea he fought bloom for racial reasons (Bloom's a Jew), explaining instead the reason he felt they both had to fight:
"He had fought Bloom because he had to fight somebody, or else bite himself and go mad, the same reason Bloom had fought him, two men who were on the edge and ridden raw..."
"...Fighting each other, because it was so much easier than trying to find the real enemy to fight, because the real enemy the common enemy was so hard to find since you did not know what it was to look for it and could not see it to get your hands on it, so you fought each other, which was easier..."
I've cut out a bit, but that's the essence of Prew's reason: He's having a terrible time, and since he can't physically confront or even really grasp the one true evil driving his problems (if that evil even exists), he just went for the first guy who annoyed him and agreed to punch it out with him when provoked. Not shokingly healthy, but, well, this is a guy who's schooling ground to a halt when his mom died at the age of twelve. Robert E Lee "Healthy coping mechanisms" Prewitt this guy is not.
He goes on to comment their fight was a draw, at best, and Prewitt's own loss, at worst, since Bloom was able to fight him, and then turn around and win a professional ring match right after.
Bloom, meanwhile, looks back on his fight with Prewitt as a total failure, and another sign he is incapable of escaping his own Jewishness, which he's convinced everyone hates him for:
"He didn't have what it took. He never had what it took. Prewitt had whipped him, hands down."
"You could only hope they would forget about it just so long. Eventually, it all caught up with you, and you had to come back to it again, that you were Isaac Nathan Bloom, and that Isaac Nathan Bloom was a Jew, and that everybody else knew it, too."
Reading through the chapter, it comes across less like everybody hates him, as Bloom himself believes, and more like he hates himself, so much so that he's incapable of understanding the world outside of that self-loathing.
( Read more... )
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