In Heartsong of Charging Elk, the protagonist, Charging Elk, gets man-raped.
I want to talk about this. In class, we really didn't want to address this topic, and I understand why. Homosexuality is weird to straight people like us, and even though a lot of us like to think that we're tolerant, forward thinking people, we definitely get uncomfortable at the thought of a dude going-down on another dude. The fact that it's rape makes the whole situation even worse. It's something that we try to ignore and condemn, and reading about it is as hard to do as talking about it.
But I want to talk about it. I want to talk about gay man-rape.
I think that the gay man-rape serves an important purpose in the story. Yes, it's the catalyst which ultimately results in Charging Elk's imprisonment, but I think that it also is his singular introduction to the Western World. Why? Consider the following. You never hear about homosexuality in Native Cultures. This is due, perhaps, to the male-female centric nature of their beliefs. All of creation comes about because of man and woman, so why would there be any other way? Homosexuality is a condition of the modern world. I'm not saying that people choose to be that way or anything, I'm just saying that the modern world allows for the topic to come up. In Paris, around the turn of the century, it undoubtedly would. This reality of homosexuality is a reality of the French Society that Charging Elk lives in. It is, in fact, forced upon him, but even though he rejects it by killing the homosexual, he nonetheless faces the consequences. Really, after the gay man-rape, things start to look up for Charging Elk. It doesn't seem like jail was really all that hard on him, and shortly after his release, he finds love. He is able to acclimate himself to French Society, thanks to the Gay Man-Rape.
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It is problematized, however, by the fact that Welch/Charging Elk relates the behavior to "Syoko" or "Evil," and one might wonder if this character's queerness (to use a literary term) is not being associated too broadly with an inherent sense of evil or wrongdoing. Certainly the assault/coercion is "evil," in that sense--but one worries about the association in the Charging Elk's point of view with homosexuality in general and the "syoko." At any rate, Welch complicates matters by having Charging Elk feel guilt later that he enjoyed a portion of the action in this sequence....
ReplyDeleteby the way, there is actually quite a bit of lore/history of homosexuality amongst Indians. In certain tribes what we now call homosexuals had almost a revered place--they might be pegged as "heyokas" or "contraries," and be invested with certain reverence or powers. There are other cases where such members of the tribe were allowed to separate themselves, perhaps live as the opposite sex, etc... with a high degree of tolerance...
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