The Displaced Person movie review
How often in life some considerable things that are passing by people prefer not to perceive at all. It is easer to fence yourself off the obscure situation, to take the role of the unbiased arbitrator and just observe. However, there comes a day that all your indifference will strike a knock-down blow. To prevent such an unpleasant moment or avoid these consequences at all you should learn to take every event in life into your own consideration and try to experience them as an instructive lesson. If you recognize your own fears and make efforts to overcome them it will be much easier to face all the difficulties in life. The film “The displayed person” by Flannery O'Connor can really prove useful here. It considers things in their true light without concealing or exaggerating anything which makes the whole story even more unforgettable and captivating.
The main idea of the movie is the ill treatment of a Polish refugee seeking shelter on a farm in the American South during or shortly after World War II. You are faced with a grim image of America of those days full of poverty, lack of opportunity, as well as racist and anti-immigrant sentiments. The aim was not only to criticize the hostile atmosphere where nobody seemed to care about the immigrants and their trifling life but to present it as a call for changes. In spite of the extreme intricacy of the matter there still exists a place for hope, recognition of human repentance, and belief in the possibility of renewal and redemption for all.
First of all it is important to dwell on the title of the movie. Actually there are several characters which are suffering the process of displacement. In general displaced people are believed to be those who are not where they were born at and there is not any place in the whole world for them to go and feel at home. With the help of the displacement the character or reader is able to negotiate the passage from the physical to the spiritual and from the literal to the literary. To explore this idea of displacement it is necessary to pay attention to Mrs. Shortley, then Mrs. McIntyre, and finally to Mr. Guizac who connects all the other displaced persons.
It is really difficult to understand and explain the true nature of Mrs Shortley. In spite of the fact that this woman was aware of the fate of people in the concentration camps, she did not seem to show any sympathy or pity for Mr Guizac or his family’s circumstances. You can observe in her behaviour the gulf between a protagonist's complacent self-appreciation and her 'true' character( Peden, 1975). The character of Mrs Shortley represents here one of the ideas of the Christian theology. Being extremely proud of herself she completely forgot about the moral value of other people. This odious person not only embodies the sin of pride but furthermore creates the atmosphere of racism and economic prejudice in the whole farm. From the very first meeting Mrs Shortley belittled and despised Mr Guizac which is shown through the lack of calling the man by his proper name. The Guizacs, war-refugees from Poland in her opinion formed an association with the foreign Catholic religion and was the direct moral cause of the European holocaust. The same scornful feelings she evinced towards the two black farmhands Astor and Sulk who annoyed her by ‘the illogic of their Negro-thinking’( Peden, 1975). This woman treated them as a property that did not even deserve the life they were given. Mrs Shortley devised her own social order on the farm. Mrs McIntyre, the owner of the farm, was placed at the top of that order and then herself and her husband followed by Astor and Sulk. With Mr Guizac’s arrival the perceived social order was going to change which worried Mrs Shortley most of the time and at last forced her to leave the farm. Mr Guizac’s was gradually spoiling her plans and she was not ready to be defeated. What was associated in her mind with earthly paradise in reality looked like the fallen world for other residents of the farm.
The second character to be analyzed is surely Mrs McIntyre. You can find here a lot of similarities between this woman and Mrs Shortley, particulary their scornful attitude towards deeply felt religiousness. Mrs McIntyre showed the same racist and bias behaviour towards her servants. When Mr Guizac’ cousin wanted to marry Sulk she forbade it with the pretext that “any nigger cannot have a white wife from Europe. You’ll excite him and besides it can’t be done” (Schloss, 1980). This also proved her opinions about social order as well as disapproval of interracial marriages. Mrs Mclntyre had a misery obsession with money matters that served the main reason of her accepting of the refugee family and which led to a moral hollowness. Eventually she noticed that through Mr Guizac’s work ethic the farm began to make more money and her attitude to the Polish family became even friendlier. The woman could at least develop a Christian conscience or moral obligation to Mr Guizac, however she on the contrary got used to benefiting by these poor refugees. As the superior member of the farm community Mrs Mclntyre’s displacement was given the greatest relevance. Though Mrs McIntyre witnessed the accident she did not even try to prevent it and warn Mr Guizac of the oncoming tractor. The woman expected that the man’s death would change the existing social order in the farm. However, she was deeply mistaken. That sorrowful moment when Mr Guizac’s wife and children were kneeling by Mr Guizac body and Father Flynn was giving him the last rites, Mrs McIntyre was experiencing her own displacement. It was rather strange feeling when her body was in one place but her spirit was in other one. There, in some foreign country together with natives she bent over the body and watched how the dead man was leaving the world and was slowly crossing the frontier of obscurity.
No matter how dishonest the life of Mr Guizac was she still deserved the possibility of redemption. At the end of the story she was not that strong personality who ran the farm and held everybody in her hands. The woman had a nervous breakdown that was probably her guilty conscience and lost all her strength and power. However, she was given the second chance. She got God’s grace and mercy and Father Flynn was her guardian angel. He visited the woman once a week and tried to rectify her soul and bring it desired peace and rest. The priest hoped that through believing in God and remorse she could still ransom herself. Unfortunately Mrs McIntyre did not manage to keep the earthly paradise the same way she was given it from God and gradually transformed it to fallen world. Finally she was given a chance to achieve spiritual well-being through the loss of material things. It was up to her to choose the best possible way.
So, do not miss the chance to experience some new feelings you will probably remember for all your life. It is vital to be in the center of all events that are happening around you and not just keep apart and observe. Christ himself was “just another displaced person” and his cross reminds us that we should do the same by entering into solidarity with the suffering of the world (Schloss, 1980). Make the first step to achieving this aim and “The displaced person” will guide in this difficult road till the last episode.
Works Cited
Peden, William (1975) The American Short Story: Continuity and Change 1940-1975, New York: Houghton Mifflin. 1975. Print.
Shloss, Carol. Flannery O'Connor's Dark Comedies: The Limits of Inference, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. 1980. Print.
