The Displaced Person

1. The Displaced Person The central theme of “The Displaced Person” is guilt and redemption, but the primary complication arises from the racial issue. The story develops as a sequence of betrayals, of which the whites’ betrayal of the blacks reflects the larger betrayal of Christ by all humanity. Mr. Guizac’s ignorance of American racial mores leads to a series of misunderstandings, which culminate in major disaster and universal guilt. In effect, the Pole dies because he fails to perceive that Christian charity does not extend to marriages between white and black in the American South.

2. When the Displaced Person and his family arrive at the farm, Mrs.Shortley, the hired man’s wife, stations herself on a nearby hill to observe the proceedings, and the black helpers watch from behind a mulberry tree. It is but natural that they should show an intense interest in what is happening, for they realize that the farm community where the fate of one involves the destinies of all. Mrs. McIntyre, the proprietress, sees herself as the mainstay of the operation: “ I’m the one around here who holds all the strings together...You’re all dependent on me but you each and every one act like the shoe is on the other foot.” Mrs. McIntyre, however, fails to perceive that her own welfare, both material and spiritual, is closely tiled to that of her “dependents.” The final action is one of mutual involvement in guilt and sorrow, and the consequences fall on each impartially.  

3. The black helpers, Astor and Sulk, are a seemingly worthless pair, for they lie, steal, and exert themselves as little as possible; indeed they are barely articulate. Yet they fill their roles as workers at some minimal level. When Sulk fears they will be replaced by the foreign workers, old Astor consoles him: “Never mind...your place too low for anybody to dispute with you for it.”   The white workers, through classed as superior according to the Southern social structure, are, in fact little better than the blacks. Mr. Shortley, the hired man will not take orders, smokes in the barn, and operates a still on the sly. The blacks, too, have a still on Mrs. McIntyre’s land, and they and the Shortleys have an unspoken understanding to respect the privacy of each other’s illegal operation.  

4. Mr. Guizac, the Polish immigrant, is a vastly different type. A model of proficiency, he can operate the various farm machines with total dexterity, in an indefatigable worker, is scrupulously clean and does not even smoke. Mrs. McIntyre regards him as her salvation, but he represents a definite threat to the Shortley’ and the blacks.   Mr. Guizac, the Polish immigrant, is a vastly different type. A model of proficiency, he can operate the various farm machines with total dexterity, in an indefatigable worker, is scrupulously clean and does not even smoke. Mrs. McIntyre regards him as her salvation, but he represents a definite threat to the Shortley’ and the blacks.   She suspects that the Guizacs, like rats carrying typhoid fleas, may bring contamination with them. Mr. Guizac reminds Mr. Shortley of the man who had thrown a grenade at him during the war,and he complains that it is unfair that such persons should threaten the jobs of those like himself who “fought and bled and died in the service of his native land.”  

5. Mr. Guizac too has difficulty comprehending the unfamiliar aspects of a strange society. He is impatient with the blacks, and he caught Sulk in the act of stealing a turkey from her pen. He is troubled by Mrs. McIntyre’s lack of concern and is confused by her offhand explanation that “all Negroes steal.” but, despite Mr. Guizac’s intolerance of certain black characteristics that the native southerners accept as inherent, he is only too accepting in other ways. On his arrival, he shakes hands with the blacks as if they were his equals. His democratic attitude violates Southern notions of propriety and decency when he sets in motions a scheme to bring his young niece to American as Sulk’s bride. Mrs. McIntyre has felt a growing irritation toward the Guizacs, even though they have contributed substantially to her own material prosperity; but her discovery the Guizac is plotting a mixed marriage causes her to explode in indignation: “Mr. Guizac! you would bring his poor innocent child over here to marry her to a half-witted thieving black stinking …..! What kind of monster are you!” She is unmoved by the protestations that the girl’s mother and father are dead, and that she has been confined in an internment camp for three years. In the segeregated South, marriage between white and black is impossible in any terms.  

6. Thus, the misunderstandings arise not only from the provincial whites’ distorted notions of Europe and Europeans but also from the foreigner’s unwitting violations of the rigid Southern social codes. In addition, there is a third level of misunderstanding, seen in the vast discrepancy between the ultimate spiritual reality and the petty concerns of those obsessed with their own immediate material welfare. Father Flynn seems barely aware of the literal features of experience, for his thoughts dwell constantly on salvation as expounded in the doctrines of the church. He alone responds to the deep symbolism of the peacocks strolling about the farmyard; to his, the magnificence of their spreading tails is emblematic of the transfiguration. Mrs. McIntyre has no notion of what she is talking about: “As far as I’m concerned...Christ was just another D.P.” Mrs. Shortley, viewing the peacocks earlier, had responded merely to the literal visual image.  

7. Father Flynn’s orthodox faith is contrasted with the bizarre visions of Mrs. Shortley, who launches herself on a career of apocalyptic revelation. In particular, she directs her sinister warnings against the Guizacs , who are, she insists, the devil’s emissaries. Obviously, Mrs. Shortley’s mantic trappings are an elaborate illusion bred out of her own sense of personal threat. Mrs. Shortley ominously warns the blacks of their precarious position before the invading of the “D.P.’s” She is surprised to discover that it is her husband, rather than the black underlings, who is slated for replacement. Without waiting for an official dismissal, she load their household goods, together with miscellaneous possessions of Mrs.McIntyre, into their ancient car, and they leave before the morning milking.  

8. In the car, people and belongings area jumbled in a manner curiously reminiscent of Mrs. Shortley’s description of heaped European corpses. In the newsreel, she has seen “a small room piled high with bodies of dead naked people all in a heap, their arms and legs tangled together, a head thrust in here, a head there, a foot , a knee, a part that should have been covered up sticking out, a hand raised clutching nothing.” To Mrs. Shortley, the scene was vivid evidence of the devil’s grip on Europe. When Mrs. Shortley was seized by the urge to prophesy, she had shouted: “Legs where arms should be, foot to face, ear to palm of hand.Who will remain whole? Who? As Mrs. Shortley succumbs to her stroke, she behaves in a strange manner: “She suddenly grabbed Mr. Shortley’s elbow and Sarah Mae’s foot at the same time and began to tug and pull on them as if she were trying to fit the two extra limbs onto her self.” Mrs. Shortley does not “ remain whole.” She, too, was vulnerable to disaster, like the unfortunate Europeans pictured in the distressing newsreel scene.   Mrs. Shortley becomes, therefore, in a real sense a “displaced person”: first in her husband’s loss of position, then in the wild frenzy of her death agony, and finally in her own loss of life.

9. Further displacements are through the demise of Mr. Guizac whose death occurs as a result of unpremeditated conspiracy on the part of the three observers, none of whom can bring himself to shout a warning to the man lying in the tractor’s path: “She had her eyes and Mr. Shortley’s eyes and the Negro’s eyes come together in one look that froze them in collusion forever, and she had heard the little noise the Pole made as the tractor wheel broke his backbone.”  

10. As a result of their mutual participation in the “murder” of Mr. Guizac, the three culprits now become displaced person’s themselves. Mr. Shortley leaves without notice that very night, and Sulk sets out unexpectedly for the southern part of the state. Mrs. McIntyre barely notices their absence, for she collapses and must be taken to the hospital. On her return home, she sells her cattle (at a loss) and lives her declining years enfeebled in mind and body. Her sole regular visitor it the priest, who comes faithfully once a week to feed the peacocks and to expound the mysteries of the Redeemer. Who remained so long a displace person in the hearts of Mrs. McIntyre and her helpers.