International Journal of English and Literature (IJEL) ISSN 2249-6912 Vol. 3, Issue 1, Mar 2013, 59-62 TJPRC Pvt.

. Ltd.

THE HEALING POWER OF TIME AND CHANGE IN ANNE TYLERS THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST
LATHA K MENON1 & T K HEMALATHA2
1 2

Research Scholar, Karpagam University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India

Associate Professor, Department of English, Nirmala College for Women, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India

ABSTRACT
Individuals consciously resist change; ironically, time and change are often the only two factors that have the power to alter, heal and renew the zest for life. What can one expect of individuals who have lost a dear one? Grief, accusations, guilt, blame game, hopelessness, escapismthe list is long. There is no time tested grieving period or healing period. With time, most people heal and the redemptive force of healing can help people move on with life after a loss. The Accidental Tourist awarded the National Book Circle Critics Award in 1985, authored by American writer Anne Tyler, substantiates how time plays a major role in the healing process and drives home that though memories of loss cannot be wiped out completely the pain can surely be alleviated with time. Tylers novel recounts a journey through psychic despair to rebirth. The novel reaffirms how change can win out over stasis.

KEYWORDS: Grief, Time, Change, Healing INTRODUCTION

Anne Tyler's tenth novel The Accidental Tourist has the delicate balance of a piece of music with highs and lows. The reader is drawn into the melancholic lives of the Learys only to find that there is comedy and pathos, order and chaos. Macon and Sarah Leary are left to grope around a maze of grief, guilt and catastrophes before unexpected events and individuals introduce twists that actually help in healing and give a new outlook to life. The novel reiterates that man has the ability to come to terms with loss, move on and make life meaningful. The lovingly drawn, eccentric characters go through hardships and feelings of hopelessness. They come into conflict with themselves and each other verging on the point of no return. They slip and jostle their way through life, simultaneously nurtured and stifled by their families and their past. Yet, they emerge shining because of the accompanying chords of hope and healing, liberation, laughter and the determination to survive. Anne Tyler once noted that writing this novel was the most difficult because she hated to see one of her characters die. The novel emphasizes that personal change occurs not as a result of isolated introspection but by the support of relationships. It is proved at the end of the novel that relationships can be a redemptive and healing force. Macon Leary, in his forties is a travel book writer. He is a timid man and a natural worrier. The senseless murder of his son Ethan in a shootout at a burger outlet, a year earlier and the subsequent separation from his wife Sarah leaves him devastated. Reticent and self-restrained by nature, Macon grapples with his grief in his typical stoic manner. He adopts strange ways to camouflage the pain of his loss. He locks himself inside his Baltimore home, going out to purchase essentials only on Tuesdays, When the supermarket was least crowded with other human beings (51). Macon takes refuge in neurotic routines which he believes are systems. Obsessed with the idea of sanitation and conservation of energy, he uses the dishwasher sparingly, letting dirty crockery pile up in his bleach disinfected sink. He disconnects the clothes drier to save on electricity, he does his laundry as he showers, stamping his clothes underfoot and letting them dry in his bathroom overnight. Matters become worse, as his behaviour slips from eccentric to neurotic to compulsive.

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As Macon slips even more deeply into acute depression he creates an odd invention- a sleeping bag, by sewing the bed sheets together. He thought of it as the Macon Leary Body Bag, the type that would save him the tedium of tucking in during summer nights; rather it helped to comfort him with the feeling that he had cut himself off further from the outside world. He realized that it would not be suitable for winter nights but winter seemed so far off. He was barely making it from one day to the next as it was.(9).The psychic death that Macon is going through is due to the tragedies in his life. Yet his spirit is not entirely gone. He realizes in time that Hed come within an inch, within a hairsbreadth of turning into one of those pathetic creatures you see on the loose from time to time-unwashed, unshaven, shapeless, talking to themselves, padding along in their institutional garb.(52,53). The accident in the basement sets Macon back further. He breaks a leg and has it in a cast so he is forced to move back to his grandparents house where three of his siblings, Rose his sister and brothers Porter and Charles live. For a time Macon enjoys the regression and even wishes he could stay in his cast forever, covered from head to foot. The cast on his leg symbolizes the cocoon into which he has drawn himself into. Macon and Sarah had remained two distinct people through the twenty years of their marriage. Their differences drew them apart. Ethans birth after seven long years strained their relationship further. As parents they often competed with each other trying to prove whether Macon the "methodical and steady" was better than Sarah the "haphazard, mercurial" (14). Tyler drives home the point that merely living as a family does not complete a relationship. Any relationship needs to be nurtured by all the members to sustain it. Macon as a father was completely involved in Ethans upbringing. He took pains to meticulously plan every activity in his life which is neatly summed up by Tyler in one telling sentence: And Macon (oh, he knew it, he admitted it) had been so intent on preparing Ethan for every eventuality that he hadn't had time to enjoy him. A chortling, sunny little boy, he'd been, with Macon a stooped shape above him wringing his hands (15). Sarah had tolerated with amused irritation some of Macons obsessive behaviour like insisting on Ethan knowing how to swing a bat at age six for fear of being chosen last in any team, to collecting every Wacky Pack sticker because Ethan liked to stick them on his bedroom door and continuing to collect them long after Ethan had lost interest in them. After Ethans death though, Macon indulges in a futile attempt to erase all visible memories of his son from the house as quickly as possible by pressing on others Ethans things stating that he did not want them to remain unused. Sarah is hurt by the fact that Macon has allowed his systems to take control of his life and loss. A year after Ethans death she decides to leave Macon because she is angered by his apparent inability to confront his grief and his "muffled" (129), reaction to this ultimate family tragedy. Macon, faced with a double loss-that of his son and of his wife slips further and further into neurotic, self-destructive behaviour in a futile attempt to escape the pain of memory by retreating into a series of increasingly bizarre systems for daily living. Perhaps Macons insular nature and his obsessive attachment to structured living could be associated with the deeply rooted insecurities formed out of disorganised childhood experiences. His mother Alicia never gave the children the security that they required. When his father is killed in the war, Macon his sister and two brothers are left in the care of their mother, Alicia, an endlessly enthusiastic, giddy young war widow (58). She believed in change as if it were a religion. Feeling sad? Find a new man. Creditors after youMove to a new apartment (60). Macon remembered how one year they had moved house so many times that after school he would have to make a conscious effort to remember which house to go to. Macon remembers his childhood with Alicia as a glassed-in place

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with grown-ups rushing past, talking at [not with] him, making changes, while he himself stayed mute (60). There was neither real communication nor comfort there. Fortuitously, it is Ethan's dog, Edward, who brings together Macon and the wild-haired dog trainer, Muriel Pritchett, who will prove to be not only Edward's, but Macon's, improbable therapist and saviour. Edward undergoes a change after Ethans death. He misses Ethan and is psychologically upset. The only way he can express his grief is by drawing attention through unconscious acts of mischief. While Macon isolates himself from all normal human interaction, Edward's anger is manifested through uncontrolled attacks on people and things. When Macon ponders whether dogs can have nervous breakdowns, he is effectively bringing into question his own precarious mental stability. Muriel Pritchett, the dog trainer proves to be the only person capable of controlling Edward. He takes to her at first sight. As she sternly takes the incorrigible corgi in hand, she transforms him from a dog who hates the whole world(112), to a happy, well-adjusted animal. As she trains her charge, so does she transform his master. In the initial stages Muriels constant chatter and brashness shocks Macon who finds her ways crude and unacceptable. But because Edward was getting more difficult to handle, he is forced to use Muriel Pritchetts services. As Edward progresses in his training so also does Muriel grow on Macon. Muriel is attracted to Macon and she sees under his faade a very sensitive and true individual. As she reveals parts of her lifes experiences and struggles as a single parent, Macon warms up to her. What helps their relationship develop is because Muriel is not judgemental. Macon understands that though Muriel has failed as an ideal parent, she is doing her best by taking up odd jobs to supplement her income. He admires her courage for bringing up her sick son Alexander, singlehandedly. Alexander's biological father, Norman, had only married her because of her pregnancy and had quickly left because he was unable to cope with the responsibility of a sickly, non-humanlooking child. When Macon sees seven year old Alexander for the first time at the doctors clinic, memories stab his mind of the day when seven year old Ethan took off independently on his bicycle. Ethan, rode away from him, strong and proud and straight-backed, his hair picking up the light (177). As Macon becomes more than a visitor at the Pritchett home he begins to break free from his cocoon. He teaches his future step-son how to complete a simple household task, one that will, in Macon's words, make him a real man (198). Over Muriel's protestations that Alexander is not up to the job, Macon patiently guides the nervously intent child through the steps until he proudly completes the task himself. Macon reminds Alexander that he will be able to fix the faucets for his own wife one day, a comment that suggests that, with Macon's help, this dysfunctional child will grow up to be a dependable, loving husband as Macon will likely be with Muriel. At the close of this important scene, Macon happily resigns himself to the fact that he has got himself involved once again in an important family relationship (198). One day several weeks after Macon had moved into Muriels with Edward, his brother Charles drops by. He informs Macon that a neighbour of his had informed them that a tap in his house had frozen and burst causing a leak. Charles drives them up to Macons house. Once there, Macon is unperturbed by the damage caused to his house due to the leaking tap. Charles is surprised by Macons lack of reaction and states that Macon is no more the person he used to be. He expresses his disapproval of Muriels adverse influence on him and even calls her a symptom to which Macon replies, Im more myself than Ive been my whole life long, (228). This is the crucial moment when Macon is candid about his relationship with Muriel and welcomes the change happening in his life. The second key episode involving Macon and Alexander comes when Leary defends the little boy from some jeering bullies. Macon uses his dead son's dog, Edward, to come to the rescue. Edward had become healthy and whole once

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again through Muriel's training and Alexander's love. When Macon lets go of the leash and instructs Edward to go and rescue Alexander from the bullies, Edward needs no more prompting. He scatters his new master's tormentors. It is at this moment that Macon steps over that threshold from which there is no return. As Alexander slips his hand into Macon's he actually allows himself to accept the responsibility of another individual. Those cool little fingers were so distinct, so particular, so full of character. Macon tightened his grip and felt a pleasant kind of sorrow sweeping through him. Oh, his life had regained all its old perils. He was forced to worry once again about nuclear war and the future of the planet. He often had the same secret, guilty thought that had come to him after Ethan was born: From this time on I can never be completely happy. Not that he was before, of course.(237) Another important incident that helps to seal the relationship between Macon and Alexander is when Macon takes Alexander shopping to a store where he used to take Ethan. He helps the child choose clothes that he likes and transforms him from a nerdish child with his navy polyester blazer into a happy, confident little boy who is proud of his oversized T-shirts and jeans. While there, Macon meets not only an old friend of Ethan's and his mother, but his fashionable exmother-in-law, Paula Sidey. While there, Macon realizes that life goes on in spite of tragic accidents. At this moment, he decides once and for all to return to his life with Muriel and Alexander.

CONCLUSIONS
The influence of time, people and circumstances help to change Macon from a neurotic individual imprisoned by crazy systems, into a healthy, socially adroit individual, who can finally confront Ethan's death and the frightening, yet thrilling, uncertainty of life. Although Muriel's version of tough mothering is critical to Macon's recovery, it is ultimately Alexander, who, in filling the void left by Edward's master, will restore Macon to full health. When Macon is able to face the painful memory of identifying Ethan's body in the morgue he is able to come to terms finally that what remained of his son after the murder was no more than a shell of his former lovable self. This realization liberates him and helps him accept the inevitable healing power of time and change. By the end of the novel, The Accidental Tourist, Macon welcomes the breakup with Sarah and is hopeful of a happy life with Muriel Pritchett and Alexander.

REFERENCES
1. Betts, Doris. (1983). The Fiction of Anne Tyler. Interviews with Seven Contemporary Writers. Southern Quarterly 21.4. (pp.23-38) 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Petry, Alice Hall.(1990).Understanding Anne Tyler. Columbia: U of South Carolina P Salwak, Dale, (Ed.).(1994). Anne Tyler as Novelist. Iowa City: U of Iowa P Stephens, Ralph, (Ed.). (1990). The Fiction of Anne Tyler. Jackson: UP of Mississippi Tyler, Anne. (2002).The Accidental Tourist. New York: Berkley Voelker, Joseph C. (1989). Art and the Accidental in Anne Tyler. Columbia: U of Missouri P