In Rendezvous in Black, I really liked the progression Woolrich used in order to demonstrate Johnny’s descent into psychosis. The book is written in such a way which keeps the reader somewhat confused about Johnny’s state of mind, and there never is any deep analysis into what happened to Johnny’s mental state after Dorothy’s death. We know that he snapped, and we eventually come to realize that he murders the women, but we are not exactly sure about what happened to him. As readers, we are only left to understand Johnny’s psychosis through his actions of murdering the women.
Johnny’s first murder is passive. He inflicts harm without ever interacting with the woman, so we are unable to gather further insight about him. The next murder involves physical harm, but we are not given details about how Johnny was able to acquire access to his victim. Finally, with Sharon, we see how he manipulates the situation and forces Sharon to leave her husband in order to kill her. This murder, along with the murder of Madeline, shows how demented Johnny is. I found it interesting that Johnny is able to slip out of his stupor of waiting for Dorothy to “return,” charm the unsuspecting women, force them to fall in love with him and murder them. His final murder truly shows how sadistic and psychotic Johnny has become since he tracks down and murders Martine, a defenseless blind woman.
Woolrich also demonstrates Johnny’s increased psychotic behavior by allowing the reader to sympathize with the murdered women. With Jeanette Garrison, I felt that I was never given a chance to sympathize with her since Woolrich establishes this narrative after her death. With Martine, I was able to sympathize with her since the narrative enabled me to follow her attempt at trying to escape her own murder even though she does not succeed. Through this technique of establishing the stories of the women, Woolrich allows the reader to infer that Johnny has become progressively psychotic. While reading, I became interested in the characters and felt increasingly disgusted with Johnny after each murder. The increased emotional impact in each of Johnny’s crimes allowed me to see how psychotic Johnny had become.
What does everyone else think? Did Johnny descend further into psychosis as the book continued or did his mental state remain consistent throughout the book?
I think Johnny definitely delves further and further into his craziness. His actions throughout the book can be attributed to that. The man went through such a trauma that it's very easy to understand how he could really lose it so badly.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Johnny was slipping into insanity but I feel that it was that dilapidation of sanity that made me empathize as well as sympathize with Johnny more as the book went on. I know that this sounds wrong, and possibly psychotic on my part, but hear me out. I feel like the poor man clearly had a break from all reality when Dorothy died and, as a result, had to come up with some outlet for his feelings. At first going every day and waiting for her was enough but when he was confronted, he was forced to come up with a different way to deal with the loss. Johnny lost everything that mattered to him and never even acknowledged it fully. The more I read the more I wished that someone would come along and help Johnny. I wished that someone would be able to connect with him on a deeper level and get him the help he needed. He was sick, and while his actions are certainly not acceptable, I cannot help but feel like he died with Dorothy and the shell of a man that was left was in a constant search for something, anything, to fill the void.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though Johnny's actions, although somewhat over the top and heinous, were just in a sense, at least in his mind. And as a reader, you either sympathize with Johnny because he was doing this killing in honor of his one and only love, or the opposite and you think he is sick and twisted and this is what dorothy would have wanted. Either way as the book continues his actions do get more violent and personal showing his progression towards the crazy side.
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