The short story “Mauser” by Louise Erdrich essay
The short story “Mauser” by Louise Erdrich is set for the most part in the road-construction company’s office, near Sioux Falls. The narrator is a woman working as an accountant in the same company. She was having an affair with a co-worker Travis Houpart. One night when she breaks up with her boyfriend, Travis approaches her. She already knows about his hollow and manipulative attitudes to women and people in general, but she is vulnerable and Travis takes advantage of that. An affair is starting between them. Eventually their boss Jack Mauser discovers the narrator and Travis in embrace in the office and he fires the narrator from the job. Our goal in this paper is to show, how desire and need for comfort can lead a woman to heartbreak. A woman in love is likely to see her lover in a different way than he actually is, not seeing the obvious flaws of his character and giving him undue credit. Thus, a woman in love can be easily manipulated by dishonest men. The only thing that is left for those women after their heart is broken is revenge. Bravery in the face of danger and even death and strong will – traits that are to be sought by women who want revenge on the men who wronged them. That was perfectly illustrated by the short story under our analysis.
In the final scene of the story, the narrator and Jack Mauser are executing their revenge on Travis. The narrator is past the emotional limit, she wants revenge for using her. It’s her anger and desire for revenge that make her brave in the face of imminent disaster: “you can drive me past a limit too. This feeling had been building in me for the past two days, a wild fever … Now everything felt right. This was the moment, I decided” (Erdrich, 42-43). The narrator is enraged and hurt by a man she was in love with no matter that he didn’t deserve this love, and her heart’s wish is to make him suffer as much as she can, even if it means potential danger of death. A “wild fever” that holds her allows her to disregard fear and danger of her actions.
The narrator also bravely endures Mauser’s rage. Although this rage is not directed at her but at Travis, it is still a trial for her because she thinks: “You see a thunderhead building in the sky … You see boot-camp sergeants in bad movies. Mauser’s rage was a combination … It was dangerous” (Erdrich, 42). She is obviously terrified but determined to see, what will happen to Travis in the end. On the other hand, Travis is terrified of Mauser, because despite being a man, he is a coward and always was, for only cowards use women to reach their own goals in life. Although the narrator wants Travis to suffer, she is nevertheless concerned about him not being hurt physically, for after Mauser is finished with Travis, she asks Mauser if Travis is ok. In part, her concern stems from her fear of Mauser’s rage – she probably thinks that Mauser in his anger would beat Travis to death.
Finally, the narrator doesn’t regret her actions in the least. She is committed to be strong and unforgiving of wrongs, made to her by Travis. In the final episode of the scene we can read the following dialogue between Mauser and the narrator: ““you feel sorry for him? Think I should go back?” “No,” – I said. “Of course not. He was a mistake”” (Erdrich, 42). Travis is no more than a “mistake” for her, as much as she was no more than a prop, a plastic blow-up companion for him. The narrator leaves Mauser at a seafood quick-stop. The story ends with optimistic note: “I just drove off. I was beginning to like this new habit of leaving men in odd positions” (Erdrich, 42). She is free and speeding on into the bright future, free of Travis and bad memories. Her heart is light, though broken. But nobody has died from a broken heart yet.
The aims of our essay were to show how some men manipulate other people to their advantage; that love blinds a woman so she doesn’t see even the worst traits in her lover’s character; that the woman in men’s world is often treated as thing to be protected or a thing to be used, but a thing nonetheless, not a living feeling person. Men like Travis exist not only in fiction, sometimes, and perhaps too often, we can encounter them in our own lives. While men are not so susceptible to manipulation, women, due to their emotional nature and vulnerability, can be easily deceived by dishonest men who are used to having everything in their lives at another person’s cost. Only by being brave, strong-willed, self-sufficient and free a woman can stay away from those men, who would otherwise use her as a tool for their own gain, and break the woman’s heart in the end.
