Nobody's+Fool

**Nobody’s Fool**  **Mary Hood**

__**Summary:**__
 * “**Nobody’s Fool” is about an old, retired mill worker named Floyd, who is both mentally and physically weak and knows himself to be useless to society. This mentality is reinforced by his daughter, Ida, who is shown to berate him on several occasions. In the beginning, other than the fact that Floyd chews tobacco, his behavior is similar to that of a child. He hauls the dog food sack up the hill instead of putting some in a bucket like Ida told him to. He leaves the dog gate open and the dogs escape, leading to Ida’s dismay. Floyd resolves to run away, leaves a note on the table, gathers clothes and his Bible, and walks towards town. He hitchhikes along the way and finds a room for a week when he gets there. Floyd gets odd jobs, such as raking leaves and handyman chores for widows, while he waits to change his Social Security number so his checks will stop being sent to Ida’s house. Floyd gets arrested for burning piles of leaves, but the police let him go because they feel sorry for him. He then has delusions that Ida has found him and breaks his arm in an attempt to sneak out of the boarding house. He goes to a hospital where he is forced to tell them his name so he can get treated, but he doesn’t want to because he is afraid Ida will find him. Floyd’s Bible, left outside in the rain after his fall, is ruined, but Floyd looks at it, knows what’s inside, and understands that he has to return home. Floyd returns home to apologize to Ida about leaving the dog gate open and he is met with a silent response, as Ida stares at him from her doorway.

__ **Author’s Ideology:** __ Mary Hood is strongly connected with the landscape of Georgia and the rural surroundings in which she grew up and lived. She wrote “And Venus is Blue”, the short story collection from which “Nobody’s Fool” is extracted, to reflect her feelings revolving around her beloved rural area being developed and urbanized.

__ **Ideologies Prevalent in Text:** __ Floyd represents the rural dweller who is displaced and he represents the class of oppressed people. Ida, Floyd’s daughter and thereby one of the younger generation, represents the urbanization of rural areas. She berates Floyd for his failure to do menial tasks correctly and this suggests that those who urbanize areas have the same attitudes towards rural folk. An attitude that they are less than useful. However, Floyd does have an impact upon Ida when he runs away and this can represent the tendency for society to regret what its done to less fortunate members and attempt to reabsorb them into the community. The author’s ideology, therefore, is prevalent throughout the text. However, the story also represents class struggle of Marxist ideology.

__ **Marx and Engels:** __ Within the text Floyd, a retired mill worker, is part of the base. Ida, a school teacher, is part of the superstructure because she is involved in education. Ida lays down her ideologies in her expectations of Floyd. Now that Floyd is no longer a productive member of society because of his frailty, Ida puts him to work doing menial tasks that he can never do right. Floyd is tasked with taking care of the dogs and when he does not shut the gate, he is berated by Ida. Floyd represents the proletariat and the wage slave, becoming increasingly oppressed as Ida, or the bourgeoisie, forces him to do tasks so she feels that he is more productive. Floyd overcomes his false consciousness by running away to the town. However, when in town he succumbs to the same menial jobs as he did for Ida, without any apparent escape. Floyd soon realizes that he needs to return to Ida, which represents his realization that there is no escape from her control.

__ **Georg Lukacs and Reflection Theory:** __ Using reflection theory, assuming that the base directly reflects the superstructure, Floyd can be seen to directly affect Ida with his defiance at the end of the text. Ida is described as looking “hollowed out, like she could use that biscuit and some sleep too.” Clearly, Ida still cares for her father, even though she is an oppressive force. However, because the text revolves around Floyd the reader does not get a full view on how Ida and the superstructure is being affected.

__**Louis Althusser and Production Theory:** __ Using production theory, which assumes that the superstructure influences the base, Floyd can be seen to be directly motivated by the actions of Ida. He runs away because he feels oppressed from her influence and, even in freedom he feels her influence. This can be seen when “He thought Ida had found him.”, and “He thought Ida was spying on him.”. Afterwards, he is directly motivated by these notions to flee the boarding house.

__**Ideological State Apparatuses and Interpellation:** __ The prevailing ISA is the family because Ida is Floyd’s daughter and he, therefore, wants her to love him and find him useful. This is the primary factor controlling Floyd. Ida interpellates Floyd by giving him the identity of an old man who isn’t useful anymore. When Floyd flees to town, the widow for whom Floyd changes a lightbulb tells him, “You’re not too handy...”, which reinforces this interpellation. Another ISA that affects Floyd is religion, seen through the importance he places on his Bible. Floyd takes his Bible with him when he leaves and after it gets ruined the text states, “He knew by heart what was in there.” and Floyd returns to Ida and his oppression after reflecting on its contents. A repressive state apparatus also appears in the story in the form of Social Security, Medicare and the police. In the first two instances Floyd relies on them for his well being and they tie him to Ida because Social Security checks are sent to her house and he believes the authorities would alert her that he is hospitalized. The police reinforce society’s view that Floyd is a frail, unproductive man because they let him go after he burned piles of leaves due to their realizing that he was neither a vagrant, nor possessing money for a fine.

Works Cited:

Hood, Mary. “Nobody’s Fool.” Stories of the Modern South. Ed. Ben Fourkner and Patrick Samway, S.J. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. 262-274. Print.

Yew, Dede. Mary Hood. //The New Georgia Encyclopedia.// Georgia Humanities Council and the University of Georgia Press. 9 Sept. 2003. Web. 6 Nov. 2011. <[|__http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1000__]>.