Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)
Studies - László Dányi: On the Bad Side of the Fence: Fiascos of Southern Ethos
a while until they assume that these precious qualities do not and did not used to exist. Peyton feels more than affection towards her father, who comforts her when she is hurt and their gestures and physical responses show that they are sexually attracted to each other. For example, after soothing Peyton in her grief Milton "drew her toward him, feeling her arm against his leg" (Styron, Lie 79). Peyton's love towards his father immerses into her subconscious. When Dick and Peyton talk about love her father occurs to her, "'Do you love me?' he said 'Mmm-m.' He stopped her in the middle of a dip, holding her close, their lips nearly touching... 'Do you love me?' he repeated intensely. She looked up, eyes wide with astonishment. 'There's Daddy'" (201). After drinking too much Milton offers his ring to Peyton and he compares himself with Dick, "if that rich young scoundrel can give you the pin the least you can do is accept this small token of affection from a broken-down wreck like me" (221). After this scene Peyton confesses what she feels about her father, "The dear. I think we have got a Freudian attachment. The dear. He's such an ass. If it just hadn't been Mother he married" (224). Helen emasculated Milton because she wanted too much of him and he was unable to satisfy her needs. Milton looked at Peyton as the aim of his desires, "Peyton's dress was drawn tightly against her hips... he saw Peyton, those solid curved hips trembling ever so faintly; he thought desperately, hopelessly, of something he could not admit to himself but did: of now being above —most animal and horrid, but loving —someone young and dear that he had loved... Yes, dear God, he thought (and he thought dear God what am I thinking) the flesh, too, tha wet hot flesh, straining like a beautiful, bloody savage" (258). Peyton and Harry's relationship was also shadowed by Milton. Peyton remembers when Harry took her upstairs in Richmond, "I was home rocking upward in his arms, and then he laid me down on a strange bed, and I called out, 'Daddy, Daddy,' " (339). And, miracuously, Milton was actually in the room. Perhaps Peyton's misuse of sex grows out of the lessons learned from her parents. Helen longs for a father, her father image is that of a puritan father-God and Milton does not fulfill her concept of a Redeemer because Milton uses sex as a revenge against Helen's 181
