Almost fifty years ago, Bernard DeVoto stated in his famous—or perhaps infamous—essay, that "Genius is Not Enough." DeVoto, in essence, was accusing Thomas Wolfe of using only the characters, settings, and events which occurred within his own life, thus limiting his work to mere autobiography instead of using these elements to create inspired fiction. The implication which persists to this day sustains the position that Wolfe's work at its best represents a kind of "happy accident" accomplished by some miraculous or haphazard circumstance. In addition, it is perceived that all of Wolfe's manuscripts required some outside editing, of which Wolfe himself was incapable: a Perkins, if you will, to cut and paste together the best of Thomas Wolfe, leaving the extraneous and purple passages forgotten on the cutting room floor. A close study of the short story "Child by Tiger"refutes such allegations. Indeed, in this story of a black man's rampage through a small Southern town and the ultimate complicity of evil he evokes in the white townspeople, Wolfe has fashioned a tale of great artistry and technical perfection. His careful treatment of character, point of view, imagery and theme come flawlessly together to present his own "meditation on history." In "Child by Tiger" Wolfe has fashioned a notable artistic statement about one man's quest for selfhood and mankind's inescapable and tragic inhumanity.

Wolfe's story about a black man who goes berserk and kills several people, black and white, before he is himself killed, took many years to evolve into its final form. As did Styron some thirty years later, in Confessions of Nat Turner, Wolfe used an actual occurrence as the backbone for his tale. In 1906, when Wolfe was six years old, Willie Harris, alias James Harvie, came to the town of Asheville. After buying a secondhand gun, Harris proceeded on a rampage through the town, killing five people. (Dick Prosser, even more dramatically, killed nine.) This event caused quite a stir in the quiet little town of Asheville. It was recorded in The Asheville Citizen from November 14 to 16, 1906. It is possible that as a child Wolfe remembered viewing the riddled body of the Negro as it was displayed morbidly in a shopkeeper's window. In addition to using this information as part of his story about the black man, he also made reference to the incident at the end of You Can't Go Home Again, when recounting the capture of "Fuss and Fidget," the nervous little Jewish man who attempted to escape from Nazi Germany: "This is the tragedy of man's cruelty and his lust for pain—the tragic weakness which corrupts him, which he loathes, yet he cannot cure. As a child, George had seen it on the faces of men standing before a window of a shabby little undertaker's place, looking at the bloody, riddled carcass of a Negro which the mob had caught and killed" (692-693).

One thing is relatively certain. As Richard Kennedy states, the major fabric of the story came from Wolfe's imagination, for "Wolfe had only heard the story; he did no research" and had probably never even seen the newspaper articles describing the event (321, n. 13).

The complex character of Dick Prosser which evolved was, according to Floyd Watkins, a composite of three black men: first, Willie Harris; second, a beloved Negro janitor of the Bingham Academy in Asheville, admired for his "intelligence, good humor, devotion, meticulousness and humility"; and third, the Reverend Robert Parker Rumley, a fanatic black preacher who preached the same sermon, "De Dry Bones in De Valley," over and over again (108, 109). This sermon was transcribed and printed in Asheville in 1896, and is quoted in part by Dick when, in a moment of almost mystical transfixion, he prophesies to the awestruck boys the coming of the Day of Judgment.

It took a full seven years for the story of Dick Prosser to evolve into its final form. As early as 1930, Wolfe mentioned a black man in a letter to Perkins in regard to his then current work-in-progress: ". . . in the chapter called 'The Congo,' the wandering negro who goes crazy and kills people and is finally killed by the posse as he crosses the creek, is known to David, the boy . . ." (174-175). Originally, Wolfe had intended his black man to be a much less complex character than he later became, one who would primarily depict the savage nature akin to the character in Vachel Lindsay's "The Congo." In his Notebook in 1930 he mentions the black man in degrading animalistic terms as "Nigger Dick—the coon who is hunted by the posse" (Kennedy and Reeves, 518). By 1933, the story was mentioned in the Notebooks, in one of Wolfe's legendary lists, as "The Nigger Killer" (Kennedy and Reeves, 607).

Other circumstances occurred to influence Wolfe and to alter his method of composition before he once again took up the material concerning the rebel black man. In 1935, Wolfe had begun a new method of composition which allowed him greater technical control over his material. He would dictate to a secretary, then revise the triple spaced typewritten manuscripts by adding or deleting information, writing between the lines and in the margins. After the secretary once again retyped his new revisions, he would either refile them for later use, or, with the help of Elizabeth Nowell, reword those which seemed to possess enough original integrity to be used as short stories. His trip to Nazi Germany in 1936 certainly served to enhance Wolfe's social awareness, as he became increasingly preoccupied with the theme of man's inhumanity to man—a theme which pervades much of his later literature. His empathy for Jesse Owens, whom he had cheered in the Olympic Games, also served to deepen his awareness of the suffering which man inflicts upon his fellow man. From January 1 until July 1, 1937, Wolfe worked upon his story of Dick Prosser. What had begun as "The Congo" seven years earlier had evolved into his greatest short story, and the one for which he was paid the highest amount: a staggering $1200.00 when it was published by The Saturday Evening Post on September 11, 1937. In addition, with other revisions, including a change from the first person to the third person point of view, this story later took its place in Part I of The Web and the Rock as one of the episodes in the early life of George Webber, the young seer who brings together in Whitmanesque fashion all of the events which happen in the life of a small Southern town.

As early as 1930, Wolfe had fixed on the general narrative method of his work-in-progress, which incorporated the earliest framework of his future tale as well:

"Now the general movement of the book is
from the universal to the individual:
in Part I we have a symphony of many voices
. . . through which a thread begins to
run . . . we have a character which appears
at first only as a window, an eye, a . . .
seer . . ." (Nowell, 174).

The unravelling action, the complex and mysterious personality of Dick, the growing awareness of evil which subtly enters the lives of these innocent and uninitiated boys, is all filtered through the consciousness of the young narrator. As "seer" he is able to record events objectively, as a sensitive "eye" he sees and responds to all of the subtle contradictions involved in Dick's complex and provocative personality, while also recording his own sensitive perceptions and the reactions of the crowd around him. It is through the narrator's all-encompassing, everexpanding awareness that we experience the story, a point of view so finely perceived and described that we are almost within the mind of the central character and the action of the tale.

Because of their innocence, the boys are able to accept Dick not only as the stereotyped "darkie" the adults assign him to be, but as their friend. Dick fills an important gap in their lives, becoming like a kindly, all-knowing, and all-powerful big brother. He plays football with them, and coaches them at boxing, seeing to it "with his quick wrathfulness, his gentle and persuasive tact," that they don't hurt one another. They are proud when the grownups as well realize that Dick is exceptional—no ordinary "darkie": "He could cook, he could tend the furnace, he could do odd jobs, he was handy at carpentry, he knew how to drive a car—in fact, it seemed to the boys that there was very little that Dick Prosser could not do." Mr. Shepperton himself declared that Dick was "the smartest darkie that he'd ever known." In addition, he "knew his place," and had gone around to the Shepperton's back door to present his qualifications. He was willing, he modestly stated from the start, to do any job for any wage. Indeed, he delivered to his masters more than they bargained for.

Dick is a good man, a religious man, a meticulous and orderly former military man. He exhibits in all he does a sense of reason, a rage for order and discipline. When the boys, Dick's trusted friends, are granted entrance to his immaculate whitewashed room, his few possessions are neatly in place, and on the table George observes with reassurance that "there was always just one object—an old Bible with a limp cover, almost worn out with constant use, for Dick was a deeply religious man." And yet, there seems to be another side to this mysterious black man, a side which frightens the children without their knowing why: "He went too softly, at too swift a pace. He was there upon them sometimes like a cat," and at times he appears mysteriously, "like a shadow." Indeed, Dick begins to evolve throughout the tale as a kind of mysterious doppleganger, representing symbolically the shadowy other, lurking, ever ready to leap, within the dark hemisphere of man's unconscious. At times, after reading the Bible, he would enter into a trance-like state, translating their white man's familiar and comfortable religion into an alien form:

There would be times when he would almost moan when he talked to them, a kind of hymnal chant, a religious ecstasy, some deep intoxication of the spirit, and that transported him. For the boys, it was a troubling and bewildering experience. . . . there was something in it so dark and strange and full of a feeling they could not fathom . . . and the trouble in their minds and in their hearts remained. . . .

Then he would speak mysteriously of the Day of Judgment:

O young white fokes. . . . de day is comin' when He's comin' on dis earth again to sit in judgment. . . . O white fokes, white fokes—de Armageddon day's acomin', white fokes—and de dry bones in de valley.

The boys would cast aside their shadowy apprehensions, however, as they listened to Dick singing "in his voice so full of Africa" their own, familiar hymns, just as they cast aside their misgivings when they enter into Dick's unlocked room and find the rifle. Next to the Bible on the table, in contrast to its reassuring image, they see the black box containing one hundred rounds of ammunition. Suddenly, Dick is upon them "like a cat . . . a shadow . . . his eyes . . . small and red as rodents." He reassures the boys that he has bought the rifle so that he can take them shooting on Christmas morning. Swearing to keep Dick's secret, they enter into the conspiracy, what becomes to their horror as the tale unravels, a guilty partnership of evil into which, ultimately, all of the characters, old and young, black and white, are united.

With careful use of imagery, characterization, and symbolism, Wolfe had laid the allegorical groundwork for his tale. Through his description of the actual insurrection and the reaction of the townspeople, he is free to develop even further his contrasting themes and images of good versus evil, black versus white, man versus beast, North versus South, and finally, known versus unknown. George Webber "went to sleep upon this mystery, lying in the darkness listening to that exultancy of storm, to that dumb wonder, that enormous and attentive quietness of snow, with something dark and jubilant in his soul that he could not utter." The snow, coming from the alien North, brings with it its own "white mystery." Through this oxymoron Wolfe establishes the polarity, the complex worlds of contradiction that exist not only within Dick, but within all mankind: "In every man there are two hemispheres of light and dark, two worlds discreet, two countries of his soul's adventure."

Imagery of sound is added to the imagery of light and dark when George awakens at two in the morning to the sound of the alarm. The town is "ablaze with light from top to bottom," as the bell speaks an alien tongue similar to that mysterious moaning jargon of Dick's religious chanting, "a savage, brazen tongue calling the town to action, warning mankind against the menace of some peril, secret, dark, unknown, greater than fire or flood could ever be." Perhaps, then, this is the judgment day which Dick had prophesied. "It's that nigger!" Nebraska Crane shouts. Randy, his face "white as a sheet," tells George "It's Dick! . . . They say he killed four people." Suddenly they become aware of their complicity in evil: ". . . two white-faced boys, aware now of the full and murderous significance of the secret they had kept, the confidence they had not violated, with a sudden sense of guilt and fear as if somehow the crime lay on their shoulders." Having established this pattern, or melody, or imagery, Wolfe can now with a few deft strokes establish his central theme: that of man's common propensity for both good and evil. As the boys "lit" out for town, they noticed that every house was "lighted up." Even the hospital was "ablaze" with light. Against the backdrop of artificial lights, the imagery reverses itself: the white men who form the mob are transformed into "the dark figures of running men across the white carpet of the square."

Animal imagery, as well as imagery of blood and sound and darkness, fuse together as the violence of the black man is answered by the reaction of the white mob: "From that crowd came a low and growing mutter, an ugly and insistent growl" and George hears ". . . the blood note in that foggy growl." As if in response to this sound from the mob, the boys hear behind them "one of the most savagely mournful and terrifying sounds that night could know. . . . the savagery of blood was in it and the savagery of man's guilty doom was in it too" as the hounds raced "across the snow-white darkness of the Square." Reaching a crescendo of violence the lynch mob "writhing angrily now, like a snake" lets out a "bloody roar" and breaks the window of Joyner's store to loot for guns. The storm from the North which brought the evil gust of snow is "answered" by the storm of violence with which the mob hurls itself upon the Square, until it "looked as if a hurricane had hit it." Black and white have been fused now, in a corresponding cacophony of violence.

It is only after this dramatic comingling of imagery has reached its climax that Wolfe allows the narrator and the reader to piece together the chronology of events. That Dick was having an affair with Pansy Harris, "the Negro wench," was unimportant, for "adultry among Negroes was assumed." As his first black victim fell upon the snowy ground "a huge dark stain of blood soaked-snow widened out around him." Dick proceeds on his mission of destruction methodically, like an angel of death, destroying anyone in his path, white or black. As more and more information is filtered through, the town intensifies its waking nightmare. George notes that "there was no more sleep for anyone that night. Black Dick had murdered sleep."

By the creek, when he knows he has been surrounded, Dick responds as mysteriously as before. Instead of running for freedom, as a caged animal would do, Dick reacts like a soldier preparing to sleep for the night: ". . . and, as quietly and methodically as if he were seated in his army barracks, he unlaced his shoes, took them off, placed them together neatly at his side, and then stood up like a soldier, erect, in his bare feet, and faced the mob." Dick restores to himself his sense of quiet and military order. He chooses to die not like a cornered beast, but with dignity, like a man. The mob, in an orgy of violence, riddles the body, again and again. "It was in this way," George notes, "bullet riddled, shot to pieces, open to the vengeful and the morbid gaze of all, that Dick came back to town." After the body has been placed in the undertaker's window, the boys, who had been Dick's closest friends, come to look at the body with the rest of the town. In so doing, by participating in the dark and morbid curiosity of the crowd, their initiation into evil, into man's archetypal heart of darkness, has been complete.

And something had come into life—into their lives—that they had never known about before. It was a kind of shadow, a poisonous blackness filled with bewildered loathing. The snow would go, they knew . . . and all of this would be as if it had never been. . . . For they would still remember the old dark doubt and loathing of their kind, of something hateful and unspeakable in the souls of men. They knew that they would not forget.

Dick has transcended his blackness to become the unifying symbol of all mankind: man, mysterious, ineffable, containing within himself the paradoxical polarity of good and evil:

. . . a symbol of man's evil innocence, and the token of his mystery. A projection of his own unfathomed quality, a friend, a brother, and a mortal enemy, an unknown demon—our loving friend, our mortal enemy, two worlds together—a tiger and a child.

Works Cited

Kennedy, Richard S. The Window of Memory: The Literary Career of Thomas Wolfe. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1962.

Kennedy, Richard S. and Paschal Reeves. The Notebooks of Thomas Wolfe, Vol. II. Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1970.

Nowell, Elizabeth. Thomas Wolfe. New York: Doubleday and Company, 1960.

Watkins, Floyd C. Thomas Wolfe's Characters: Portraits from Life. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957.

Wolfe, Thomas. You Can't Go Home Again. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1940.