Legends of the Fall

Traditional notions of masculinity often demand that men appear invulnerable and repress their emotions, which they equate with weakness. In Legends of the Fall, Harrison uses his male protagonists and the challenges they face to illustrate how the demand to avoid vulnerability results in an inability to grapple with emotions, damaging themselves and the people around them.

Cochran, the protagonist of “Revenge,” served 20 years in the military as a pilot before retiring. Military culture and its occupational demands required him to be emotionally removed from the violence of war and the damage that he perpetrated as a participant. Yet he is not unscathed by his experience. The narrator says, “Now the war only reappeared in nightmares […] he could not bear the sight of a plane” (22). When he falls in love with Miryea, the narrator says, “not since he was eighteen had there been a relationship with a woman in which he wasn’t in complete control” (26). He experiences the vulnerability of his love as a nightmare at first but gradually opens himself up. As a result, he is even more devastated when he loses her.

The other man in “Revenge,” Tibey, is an even better example of the devastation wreaked by a man who cannot admit vulnerability. Tibey reflects, when thinking about his relationship with Miryea, that he “was often a baby in her arms” (59). When he finally confronts her infidelity, he viciously and sadistically tortures her, punishing her not just for her infidelity but for making him appear weak. He also recognizes that this vulnerability will be damaging to his reputation. This notion is reflected by his second in command who thinks that “his boss had become so distracted and drunkenly sentimental that he had begun to lose his manhood” (80). Tibey’s inability to grapple with his pain, and the fear that he will be seen as soft, causes him to viciously punish Miryea.

In “Legends of the Fall,” the protagonist, Tristan, feels the loss of his brother Samuel deeply. He is unable to express his grief directly, and it comes out obliquely in futile risk-taking. Tristan’s inability to express his grief leads to his distance from loved ones as well, manifesting in the continued physical distance from his wife and family as he struggles to cope with his emotions. He finds peace momentarily at sea: “He was red-eyed and strained from his travel but for the first time in half a year he felt something akin to ease in his soul, as if the dawn shore breeze laved the surface no matter the currents and turmoil below” (195). Yet in his quest to find moments of peace, he unknowingly causes damage to the people in his life such as Susannah: “Tristan had not more than a shred of comprehension of the agony he caused Susannah” (195). In the end, his inability to express his grief and the need to channel it into risky behavior separate him from his family and loved ones.

Nordstrom, the protagonist of “The Man Who Gave Up His Name,” is the success story of the collection when it comes to expressing vulnerability. He can embrace his vulnerability. However, it is not easy, and he faces resistance from those around him. He shifts from being unable to dance at all to dancing happily, publicly, and without a thought of spectators. But he must work assiduously to do so and deal with the hurt he is occasionally dealt because of the vulnerability he embraces. Of the characters in the three novellas, Nordstrom is the only one who ends up happy and fulfilled, and it is due, in great part, to his willingness to be vulnerable.