Hoisting the Arm of Defiance: Beowulfian Elements in Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion

J t f l C H A E L D. C . D R O U T Loyola-Chicago Hoisting the Arm of Defiance: Beowulfian Elements in Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion Although Ken Kesey is possessed of a m odern sensibility and is strongly influenced by the philosophy of existentialism, he fashions H ank Stamper, the protagonist of Sometimes a Great Notion, in the image of archetypes out of the dim mythic past of the Beowulfpoet. H ank is the dom inating, trium phant hero of the Germanic past, Americanized and brought into the m odern age. Like Beowulf, he exemplifies a type of courage that can rise above entropy and even death. Though Kesey does not deny that the powers of chaos and darkness will eventually carry the day, he presents H ank’s defiance of these powers as an alternative to either despair or absurd laughter. Most critics who have investigated Sometimes a Great Notion have interpreted H ank as an “absurd h ero ” who struggles, like Sisyphus, against the uncaring universe. In the existentialist world-view the struggle itself, not the goal struggled for, is what gives m eaning and purpose to existence, and the ultim ate impossibility of the quest to subdue unconquerable nature makes the struggle both absurd and poignant. Elaine B. Safer’s view is typical of those critical assessments that see the novel as a work inform ed by existentialism. She describes Sometimes a Great Notion as “comic absurdism ” and “black hum or,” inter­ preting the action of the novel as “an encyclopedic spectrum of expecta­ tion and hopes that fail” (138). While the hopes of many characters do indeed fail, the final image of the novel, H ank and Lee leaping from log to log while a tugboat pulls the boom s downstream to m eet the “impos­ sible” contract, belies Safer’s contention that in the end the story is best explained by an existentialist interpretation. “Knowing that there are no victorious causes, I have a liking for lost causes: they require an uncon­ 132 Western American Literature tam inated soul, equal to its defeat as to its temporary victories,” writes Camus, defining the existentialist perspective (64). But H ank’s cause is not lost: even m ore than Beowulf, he achieves victory. His chronicle needs to be read not as an example of the existentialist “absurd quest” but as a depiction of the heroic archetype Kesey has called “Man the W inner” (Strelow 72). M. Gilbert Porter first noted the presence of Beowulfian elem ents in Sometimes a Great Notion, pointing out that when H ank’s brother, Lee, imagines his hom ecom ing he sees: “an atavistic time and place, a haunted m ere where H eorot is ‘mighty Stamper hall,’ its ‘Great R uler’ old H enry Stamper, whose ‘grisly visage’ rules over a ‘h o rd e’ of kinsman in ‘plaid shirts, spike boots’” (6 2 ).'The parallels between the novel and the epic extend far beyond this scene, however. The displays of H enry’s and G rendel’s severed arms are only the most obvious congruence between the two works. H ank and Beowulf possess many of the same characteristics, including leadership, physical prowess and an unwaver­ ing spirit. Both heroes fight unrelenting battles against overpowering forces of destruction. And both Hank and Beowulf are examples of the unbending warrior defiant in the face of overwhelming odds. It is im portant to note, however, that Kesey’s novel is not a simple recasting of the poem; Kesey uses the traditional material for his purposes and freely changes elements. But even though Beowulfcannot be used as a skeleton key to unlock the novel, an understanding of the relationship between the book and the poem can provide a deeper understanding of Sometimes a Great Notion. Personal Characteristics of Hank and Beowulf Characters in separate works often possess similar characteristics, so the appearance of shared traits is not primafade evidence of a genetic literary relationship. Nevertheless, the specific congruencies between the traits of H ank and Beowulf indicate an intertextual relationship between the two heroes. Beowulf and Hank derive their com parable identities from their kinship...