Transience, Insignificance, and Beauty in Proulx’s “People
in Hell Just Want a Drink of Water”
by Mathew Base
Like many of the stories in Close
Range, Proulx’s use of setting reflects her themes, in this case the
triviality of man’s deeds, and more specifically his transgressions, in the
grand scheme of existence.
The story opens with an awe
inspiring depiction of setting; one of the most vivid in the entire collection. The description immediately reveals the main
theme of the piece, portraying the overwhelming beauty of the land while invoking
a great sense of insignificance with lines such as “[c]loud shadows race over
the buff rock stacks as a projected film, casting a queasy, mottled ground
rash. The air hisses and it is no local
breeze but the great harsh sweep of wind from the turning of the earth”,
“[d]angerous and indifferent ground”, and “[o]nly earth and sky matter. Only the endlessly repeated flood of morning
light.” (97). These images set the tone
for the events that follow, and immediately give the reader a strong sense of
the main theme. There is minimal use of
setting other than the opening of the story and at the conclusion, and the action
is encapsulated by it. The story ends
with another reference to “the morning light” (115) which comes again as usual
despite the events that have occurred.
Although Proulx actually states this
theme of man’s ephemeral effects on the earth saying “[n]o past slaughter nor
cruelty, no accident nor murder that occurs…delays the morning light” and
“[o]nly earth and sky matter” (97), it is the use of setting that really makes
her theme powerful. Tomorrow the sun
will rise, the wind will blow, regardless of the petty actions of man.
