The Caretaker, Week 2

In 'The Caretaker', Anthony Doerr captures the horrors of the Liberian civil war and the racism faced by refugees in America. To combine this complex history with poetic insight regarding guilt and morality, Doerr combines a journalist's objectivity with a poet's metaphors. His loaded symbolism, however, is not as powerful as his elegant simplicity.

When I first began reading 'The Caretaker', I thought it was a satire because Joseph Saleesby, the main character, seemed so stick-like--the classical Mama's boy. As complexities such as Joseph's business in trafficking were introduced, it felt more extraordinary because the traumatic events clashed with the point-blank writing style. On page 97, a man describes the process of killing Nigerian peacekeepers in a horrifyingly subdued manner, “They die so easily. It's like sprinkling salt on the backs of slugs.” When Joseph is called a killer for the first time, he defends himself by crying back that he is only a cook. When he is called an African savage, he thinks to himself that he could not be so inhumane, because he is a gardener. He has reduced morality to professions, a simple concept, but also a deep analysis regarding labels. When the civil war ends, Joseph is apathetic about being deported; he has become as distant as the omniscient narrator. In this way, the author avoids a cliché happy ending.

However, the whale metaphor in this story is not so simple. Instead, it is a long image, drawn out for many pages, and it is desperate to serve as a symbol for the countrymen Joseph was unable to bury. Even after the discussion, I still think the story would have lost nothing had this section been left out. For one, when Joseph was unable to bury his countrymen in Africa, it is left to the reader to notice this. This image does not need to be brought up again when Joseph tries to bury the whales because the dead Liberians are horrific enough without the symbolism. The reference towards the immense guilt Joseph feels are all addressed in less obvious fashions when Joseph punishes himself by failing to meet the expectations of the couple he worked for and by refusing to eat as his own garden flourishes. These events did not seem inserted for the sake of a metaphor, but added to the storyline. When Joseph went to work, it was logical, because most people want jobs. When he refused to work, I remembered the times at Marshalls Department Store and how, no matter how much effort I put into picking up socks, my managers did not think I picked up socks well enough. I could understand why Joseph did not think working would do him any good. As for starving himself, I can understand why the guilty would do so. As for burying whale hearts, well, this was stretching my boundaries, and I do not want to assume that he just buried whale hearts because he is a Liberian refugee. In this way, the whale metaphor seemed only a metaphor, as opposed to an experience anyone else could feel.

I have always enjoyed simplicity in writing, probably because I do not want to be told by the author, “Pay attention. I am being very deep, and very powerful. You can tell because I am suddenly writing about a whale, and what other purpose could a whale possibly have other than a metaphor?” When the language is simple but the message is powerful, it is as though the reader and the reader's life experience create the power, rather than the fantastical imagery. For this reason, the whale scene, which held no literal and only figurative significance, seemed pointless. The rest of 'The Caretaker', however, was heartfelt and real in its journalistic approach as well as in its simplicity.