Satire in Love in the Ruins Part II

L. Lamar Nisly, "Percy's Edgy Satiric Fiction" in Wingless Chickens, Bayou Catholics, and Pilgrim Wayfarers: Constructions of Audience and Tone in O'Connor, Gautreaux, and Percy. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2011.

The second target for Percy's satire in Love in the Ruins is scientism. The scientific community is prominent in the novel. This community and Dr More have "bought into the allure that science can provide all the needed answers" (170-171). Representative of the scientific community is the Love Clinic, in which "volunteers perform sexual acts singly, in couples, and in groups, beyond viewing mirrors in order that man might learn more about the human sexual response" (Ruins 12). They turn the sexual act into a scientific experiment that is observed by people in white coats observing their activities. The second facility is the Geriatrics Rehabilitation which is meant to treat older people "for the blues and boredoms of old age" (Ruins 12). They are reconditioned in Skinner boxes to help them to respond positively to their environment. Those who are unable to be rehabilitated is sent to the Happy Isles Separation Center, where if "thy misbehave antisocially they're shocked into bliss" (Ruins 103). Percy in describing these facilities is attacking "an attitude that suggests that humans are simply organisms to be studied and manipulated" (171). Percy often asserts in his writings that people are more than organisms in an environment. They actually transcend their environment. Both the Love Clinic and the Geriatric Rehabilitation facilities turn people into a "specimen." Dr. More is "bothered' by these facilities, but, nevertheless, "is himself guilty of scientism, for he believes that he can diagnose and, he hopes eventually, treat people's psychological disturbances by massaging the brain's electrical pulses with his lapsometer" (171). This purpose is helped by the appearance of a devil figure, Art Immelman, who provides an adapter for More's lapsometer which enables him to "manipulate people's brains" (171). More is enticed into a Faustian bargain. Percy shows Art to be the devil because he is able to perform small miracles and "wince when a person mentions God" (171). More seems to be trying to serve as a savior figure by saving everyone from what ails them. In other words, he is entrapped by scientism too. Nisly asserts, "Rather than offer an alternative to the Scientism he dislikes, Tom embodies another version of science as offering an ultimate answer" (171).

A third target is how white people have treated African-Americans in the South. The relationship between whites and blacks are prominent in this novel. The novel also presents much polarization in the society. He divides the society into Right, Left, and Militant Blacks. Percy offers extensive remarks on race relations in the novel. Nisly observes, "As the society has become more splintered, fear and misunderstandings become more prominent between blacks and whites as well" (171). Percy talks about white flight from public schools through the creation of Valley Forge Academy. This is actually a private school in Louisiana and it still exists. Percy comments on the school, "which was founded on religious and patriotic principles and to keep Negroes out" (Ruins 10). Nisly asserts, "By making explicit what was often only implicit, Percy's use of satire forces his readers to confront directly attitudes behind segregated private schools" (171-172). Percy assigns certain discomforts to the splinter groups: "Conservatives have begun to fall victim to unseasonable rages, delusions of conspiracies, high blood pressure, and large bowel complaints. Liberals are more apt to contract sexual impotence, morning terror, and a feeling of abstraction of the self from itself" (Ruins 17). Nisly thinks these discomforts points to the extreme anger these groups were experiencing. The humor in describing these groups allows these groups to be seen "afresh."

Percy also criticizes the Church generally, and the Roman Catholic Church particularly. Nisly thinks that a "kind of cultural Christianity is present throughout the novel, with Christian language particularly tied to Knothead issues" (172). For example, they make a big thing of a "golfaroma, a mystical idea of combining a week of golf on a Caribbean Island with the Greatest Pro of them all--a week of revivals conducted by a member of the Billy Graham team" (Ruins 39). However, a more pronounced rebuke is to the fracturing of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has split into three groups: "The American Catholic Church, which emphasizes property rights and the integrity of neighborhoods, retained the Latin mass and plays The Star Spangled Banner at the elevation;" then, there is the Dutch Schismatics, who allow priest to marry, divorce, and maybe, remarry; and last, there is the Roman Catholic remnant, "a tiny scattered flock with no place to go" (Ruins 5). Percy with this satire notes the lack of unity in the Roman Catholic Church. By saying that the American Catholic Church is more concerned about property rights than being faithful disciples to Jesus Christ, shows their lack of commitment. He seems also to talk about priest who have left the church by portraying a former preach who works at the love clinic "vaginal console--but read Commonweal while he is working.

Percy seems to "undercut" these four areas by satire to "point to a deeper commitment that Percy hopes to push his readers to make" (172). Nisly states that after this novel was published, that there was actually a sniped staked out at the Howard Johnson Hotel. Percy was asked by this event stated that it is not difficult to see the path where the country is going: "I mean, we all live in this century, and God is dead, we're told, and what you should believe in is in yourself, your potential, or your neighbor, his potential, or some social change and a few more discoveries" (Robert Coles, Walker Percy, 193). Percy is undercutting certain ideas through his satire so that "these efforts to find meaning apart from faith in God are ultimately doomed for failure" (173).