back in april i watched moral orel & clayâs speech in sacrifice⌠i was impressed, but i didnât understand it initially. so i dissected it & wrote an analysis of it, so here it is.
transcript of the speech:
(1) Tell me, Doc. Did some of those pain killers protect her against you? You know. The pain. Of you. Day in, day out, being there. With that face. Not knowing what to say. Not caring anymore. Not even knowing that youâll probably only care about her when itâs finally too late.Â
(2) Forgetting about all those desperate- those desperate years you spent alone, your barren years when no woman would even consider resting her tired head on your shaky little shoulder. Stinking of belly semen. Why even wipe?Â
(3) And when you finally get one of these [Points at Dolly and imitates a fanfare] coveted pieces of tail that have been built up as the grand trophy in your nothing life, you try desperately to keep it. Not to protect it! But to hoard it. To keep it away from the other wolves and jackals circling your territory!Â
(4) And you realize, all too soon, that youâre not good enough! That maybe there was a jerk-off called Darwin after all. And that you never acknowledged his existence because you knew deep inside that you were really what you feared you were- weak. And passive. And ultimately, broken by the ones who were made the fittest. And that through your weaknesses, you built up a poison that poisoned others around you. [About to cry] That you love. And the only true justice was to let those dominant jackals feed on you. Survive off you.
For starters, some people are interpreting his speech as if heâs exclusively talking about himself; heâs not. Heâs referencing the plights of the three men heâs addressing, and said plights happen to also (mostly) apply to him. Heâs not raving about himself, at least until the end; heâs reading the men for filth, and using his own experiences to further get them where it hurts.
(1) Clay starts with the doctor, who he accuses of having purposefully killed his own wife, out of never having cared about her and wanting her done away with (âI hope you die / I hope we both die.â). This is something Clay relates to, but he turns it around and, strangely, empathizes with the wife - asking the doctor if heâs tricked himself into thinking that the medicinal comfort he provided her in her final days made up for the years she wasted being with a man who didnât care about her, not even enough to try to communicate in an attempt fix things. He cares now that sheâs gone, because he knows he didnât appreciate what he had when he had it. He never couldâve known that you could miss something once itâs gone even if you loathed it when you actually had it.
(2) Then he turns to Reverend Putty, and Clay finds himself unable to relate to him; instead, he feels resentment and a mocking sense of pity. Putty had spent so many years alone, and yet when he finally got what heâd wanted all this time, he was unappreciative and choosy, when Clay, and several other of the town (and society)âs men, had simply had to settle for whatever they could find, and thus felt victimized by having âhadâ to resign themselves. Itâs kind of an âare you happy now, asshole?â thing. The semen thing is a bit random and off putting, but I suppose heâs referring to Puttyâs frequent masturbation. He, almost sadly, asks him what the point of wiping it away every time is, when itâs a daily reality. That it always ends up being him and his hand. I donât think Clay was also speaking about himself here, though I suppose he does relate to feeling intimacy-starved.
(3) His third target is the officer, whoâs struggling with having lost his wife to divorce and, now, to another man. This Clay relates to, and finally, he starts to get emotional. Clay also abandons his martyr complex for a moment and is uncharacteristically self-aware and self-critical. The âcoveted pieces of tailâ bit gets its own section in a moment, because it ties into the whole theme of Clayâs rant and Iâll use it to conclude this analysis, so for now, weâll address the second part. Clay says that once you find a woman, you put your energy into keeping her (âitâ, in his words, because Clayâs very much a misogynist, in the traditionalist sense). But thereâs no noble intentions - itâs not a desire to protect, itâs simple greed. Territorialism. Animal instinct⌠nature, really. Clayâs very pre-occupied with the worldâs ânatural orderâ. He doesnât question anything; he enforces what appeals to and backs up his warped perception of reality, and disregards the rest.
4) He carries this idea about nature into his assault on his final target; himself. Itâs the emotional climax of his rant, and he finally finds it in himself to address his own issues blatantly, though still not directly; he never can speak candidly without deflecting. Clayâs final conclusion is that Darwinâs theory of evolution was right all along, especially in the concept of natural selection, otherwise known as âthe survival of the fittestâ. Clay falls into male insecurity here; worrying that maybe heâs been a beta male the whole time, weak and passive and complacent, and was made worse by the alphas out to get him⌠namely, the world as a whole. While he doesnât accept responsibility, he at least displays some self-awareness by acknowledging his behavior has harmed his family, though he blames said behavior on having been broken by the world⌠by the natural course of the universe. Though he canât fault himself for building up âa poisonâ, as, to him, thatâs an understandable coping mechanism against what heâd endured, he does fault himself for poisoning his loved ones - namely, Orel. I think destroying his relationship with the one person who loved him unconditionally really fucked him up. And for his crime of being poison, the only justice is to surrender to the beast that is nature. Let it feed on him, so that the cycle can continue.
Itâs a commentary on the American ideal, especially in a little Bible belt town like Moralton; the commonly accepted idea that the only objective in life is to find a spouse (âthe grand trophyâ) and procreate. In Moral Orelâs characters, this is emphasized to the extent that anyone who doesnât achieve this is ostracized and labeled by their loneliness (see: the alone episode, where the women live in a place called âapartments for spinstersâ). Those âlonely soulsâ then desperately seek comfort in another human, any other human, without acknowledging the possibility that they could be just fine and happy on their own. They idealize the concept of companionship to all hell (Putty, especially), and are envious of married people, without realizing that marriage out of obligation is a recipe for a lifetime of misery. And while Clay finds himself victimized by this ideal, rather than being angry at the actual concept, in a rare moment of taking responsibility (and of course he misplaces it), he blames himself for not being able to live up to a common standard. Because heâs not strong enough to happily resign himself, like a man âshouldâ. Everyone always said thatâs all anyone ever needed; a family to cherish. So why isnât it enough for Clay? Whatâs wrong with him for being so dissatisfied? It canât be that itâs simply a bullshit âidealâ, because he likely thinks said ideal came from God himself - so it must be Clay himself. This is sometimes where his occasional self-loathing comes from, when it manages to overwhelm the narcissism; not that heâs a bad person, but that heâs a bad man. That heâs a weak man. I hesitate to use the term, but dare I say toxic masculinity? He, and the other men in their small, closed off little world, are just so damn desperate to fit into what theyâre âsupposedâ to be. Whatâs right - whatâs Godâs will. Fuck individuality; in their conservative and traditional society, they have a set path they must stick to. If they deviate, theyâre an abomination, but God forbid they let anyone know theyâre not perfect - and so, theyâre stuck, alone, in their own misery and unhappiness, living with their sins and lies and shame. Not knowing they have any other options.
Clayâs entire rant is about the masculine end of this concept; you find a nice woman and you marry her, because thatâs what youâre supposed to do, right? And you hope youâll find fulfillment and stability and contentment with her. You even hope to love her, but you canât when youâre too busy loathing her for taking your freedom away. You never realized marriage was the first step out of the liberty of adolescence, and into adult misery. You thought things would be better, because why else would this be the ideal? So you start to hate her. But you canât leave because then, what do you have? Nothing (âin your nothing lifeâ). Then you have kids, and you pray youâll find what you wanted (and needed) all along in that instead. Being a husband wasnât what you thought itâd be, but maybe being a father will be different. Because those empty titles you can claim as pieces of your identity are the only things you have. And you fucked up being a son, you fucked up being a husband, and you wonât let yourself fuck up being a dad.
But when youâre Clay, the wife introduced you to the bottle years ago, and you began relying on it to silence how much you hated the control she had over you. Suddenly, youâre an alcoholic, and you want to care about your son(s), but you canât. You want to love them, but you donât. Hell, years later, you start a relationship with a man, and he loves you, more than your wife has in years, and you want to love him back, but you just canât. That part of you that loved your mother years ago has since been destroyed by years of drinking and bitterness and anger. Youâve spent so long blaming everyone (your wife, your father, God, society), because you could never deal with the reality that it might be you. But at the back of your head, you know it is, yet you try to drown it out with the booze. But it never goes away, and you know youâre poison, and you hate yourself, as you told your son in the forest that one awful night. And then youâre in a bar ranting to a bunch of pathetic, lonely assholes, trying to make them feel as shitty as you do, because thatâs the only control you have anymore. But at the same time, you know youâre the most pathetic, lonely one there. And then they leave, like everyone else, and youâre alone. Alone with yourself. And you hate them for leaving, but you canât blame them for thinking youâre not worth it. Because you know youâre not, and thatâs the hardest pill to swallow.
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