Day of the Locust Flashcards
1
Q
Author:
A
Nathanael West
2
Q
Faye Greener
A
- The vain and stubborn 17-year-old child of a failed actress
- Aspires to stardom in Hollywood
- While she has the physical glamour of a movie star, she lacks the necessary talent
- She regularly works as a movie extra, hoping to be discovered or get her lucky break.
- Has numerous male admirers, not just Tod Hackett, but Faye admits she could never love a man unless he is wealthy and willing to support her expensive needs.
- She doesn’t mind that Tod is obsessed with her.
- She likes Tod, but only as a friend
- She has a close relationship with her father, Harry Greener, though they often get on each other’s nerves.
- Rather than borrow money from Tod Hackett or her best friend, Mary Dove, Faye decides to become a prostitute and pay for the funeral herself.
- Soon after, Faye strikes up a business deal and moves in with Homer Simpson, who agrees to support her financially until she achieves fame.
- She becomes bored, restless, and mean-spirited while living with a man who dotes on her every need and whim.
- One night she takes her mean-spiritedness to the extreme and sleeps with Miguel in her bed in Homer’s house.
- When Faye’s lover, Earle Shoop, catch her in bed with Miguel, Faye takes off, leaving the docile Homer a devastated wreck of a man.
3
Q
Tod Hackett
A
- A fine artist who has recently arrived in Hollywood, worried about selling out his gifts.
- Besides his work in film, he plans an epic painting and studies the locals for inspiration.
- One day while apartment hunting, Tod sees Faye Greener and is so impressed by her looks that he moves into an apartment a floor above hers with the hope of getting to know her.
- Tod meets his ultimate muse in the mysterious and impenetrable Faye Greener, who both intrigues and repulses him.
- He often fantasizes about her, devising ways to get her to sleep with him, from coercing her with money to attempted rape.
- Tod’s lust for Faye spurs him to meet the other male admirers in her life, and, at times, he genuinely cares about her and her father, Harry Greener.
- Whenever Tod feels sexually frustrated by Faye, he diverts his pent-up energies by daydreaming about his masterpiece painting, “The Burning of Los Angeles.”
- When Harry dies and Faye moves in with Homer Simpson, Tod and Homer eventually develop an unusual, oddly matched friendship.
- When Faye leaves Homer, devastating the man, Tod tries to help Homer but fails.
- In the end, Tod’s psyche cracks too.
4
Q
Homer Simpson
A
- A 40-year-old, sexually inexperienced bookkeeper from Iowa has come to California for health reasons.
- Homer is a misfit, a man who has worked conscientiously his whole life, who has the economic resources to manage comfortably but lacks the emotional resources.
- His life of steady, meticulous work has left him with nervous tics; his busy hands operate independent of his feelings and render him helpless to human emotion.
- When Homer moves to Hollywood he is still in the grip of an emotional trauma he sustained from a near-sexual encounter with an alcoholic woman who let Homer grope her in a hotel room.
- Eventually, Homer’s pain dissipates, but when he meets Faye Greener, a new obsession begins.
- Faye uses Homer to finance her life and support her ambitions for stardom after her father Harry Greener dies.
- Happy and uplifted at first by Faye’s presence in his life, Homer is devastated when she leaves him.
- His tightly coiled emotions are unleashed when Adore Loomis hits him in the head with a stone, and Homer stomps on the eight-year-old boy, crushing him to death.
- A riotous crowd seizes Homer and presumably rips him apart.
5
Q
Harry Greener
A
- Been in show business for so long that his ordinary speech and gestures are in the style of vaudeville routines.
- Unable to land much work in film, he makes silver polish, which he sells house to house with his daughter Faye Greener’s help.
- Harry wants the theatrical success for his daughter that he failed to achieve, hoping it will save her from her worst impulses.
- When Harry becomes ill, it is a surprise, even to him, that his illness is real, not an act to gain sympathy dollars from his customers.
- Harry’s last customer is Homer Simpson, and when Harry meets Homer, he baits him into wooing his daughter Faye.
- On his deathbed, Harry shares many happy and tragic memories with his neighbor Tod Hackett, reminiscing about his wasted talents and tragic life up to the very moment of his death.
- After he is gone, his daughter becomes a prostitute to pay for his funeral, and Homer Simpson takes her in and cares for her.
6
Q
Mary Dove
A
- A prostitute who seems secure in her practical choice of profession
- Faye’s Greener’s best friend.
7
Q
Claude Estee
A
A successful screenwriter, seems to live his life immersed in imitation and Hollywood fictions, except that he makes real money.
8
Q
Alice Estee
A
The wife of Claude Estee, is one of the eccentric Hollywood types Tod Hackett goes to Audrey Jenning’s upscale brothel with for a night on the town.
9
Q
Audrey Jenning
A
- An entrepreneurial brothel madam, who charges $30 a trick.
- She has pretensions to culture and protects her girls by interviewing customers so that no girl will have to service a man Audrey Jenning couldn’t imagine sleeping with herself.
10
Q
Mrs. Johnson
A
- The Janitor at the San Bernardino Arms apartments
- Mrs. Johnson finds some self-importance in arranging funerals and protecting the interests of those she serves.
- She arranges Harry Greener’s funeral.
11
Q
Gingo family
A
- Eskimo performers from Alaska.
- Mama Gingo is friends with Harry Greener and visits him when he is sick and attends his funeral.
12
Q
Abe Kusich
A
An angry man, “a dwarf,” who is wise to Hollywood, surviving by his wits and not hampered by his physical size.
13
Q
Maybelle Loomis
A
An ambitious theatre mom, is blind to her own cruel exploitation of her son.
14
Q
Adore Loomis
A
- The precocious and spoiled child actor whose mother exploits him, takes his anger out in aggressive misbehavior.
- Homer Simpson stomps Adore to death after the boy hits him with a stone.
15
Q
Romola Martin
A
The alcoholic woman Homer Simpson almost has a sexual encounter with at the hotel in the Midwest, where he worked in the past.
