Look Homeward, Angel

During his first year at university, Eugene moves residences four to five times before eventually living on his own. Eugene first lodges in the home of a widow with a son who attends Eugene’s university and “set himself to thwart and ruin the beginnings of the boy’s university life” (329). Despondent over his lack of human connection, Eugene isolates himself and “withdrew deeply and scornfully into his cell. He was friendless, whipped with scorn and pride” (330).

Eugene meets a fellow student named Jim Trivett who soon convinces him to travel to the nearby town of Exeter, where Jim frequents a local brothel. Jim and Eugene travel to Exeter and to the brothel. Jim lies about Eugene’s age, claiming he’s 18. Paired with Lily, “a middle-aged countrywoman, with a broad heavy figure, unhealthily soft” (335), Eugene has sex for the first time. Upon leaving the brothel, Eugene vomits and makes Jim promise not to tell their peers about his getting sick. Though at first disgusted with his actions, Eugene returns to the brothel by the end of the week.

Eugene, “his loins black with vermin” (336), returns home for Christmas. Only Ben, Eugene, and their parents are present for Christmas. Eugene anxiously “believed himself to be rotting with a leprosy” (337). Eugene finally confides in Ben, and Ben takes him to see Dr. McGuire, who prescribes medication for an easily curable sexually transmitted infection. Following the abatement of his fears, Eugene returns to university newly confident and unperturbed by the taunts of his peers. Eugene visits Helen in Sydney several times.

The United States declares war against Germany in April, and all eligible men age of 21 and up enter military service. After his transfer to the local agency, Hugh and Helen move to Altamont. Ben goes before the enlistment board and is rejected due to his weak lungs. Eugene returns home after completing his first year at university. He is now 16 years old.

Eugene falls in love with a Dixieland boarder named Laura James, the 21-year-old daughter of a wealthy merchant with “eyes soft, candid, cat-green” and “with a clean lovely ugliness” (348-49). Nightly, Eugene and Laura James meet on the boardinghouse porch. On one such night, Eliza informs Eugene that his father is headed to Dixieland in a drunken rage, and she needs Eugene to intervene. Eugene rushes off to catch his father.

Meeting his father shortly after departing Dixieland, Eugene witnesses Gant as he “reeled destructively, across a border of lilies, onto the lawn, and strode for the veranda. He stumbled, cursing, on the bottom step and plunged forward in a sprawl upon the porch” (351). Gant and Eugene grapple, and “Eugene propelled his father through a blind passage of bathroom, and pushed him over on the creaking width of an iron bed” (351). After attempting to help undress his father and place him in his bed, Eugene wrestles with his father once again. Helen enters the chaotic scene, orders Gant to bed, and begins her routine of administering sobering hot soup. As Gant drifts to sleep, he calls “out in savage terror: ‘Is it a cancer? I say, is it a cancer?’” (353). Helen replies no, despite “what they all knew and never spoke of before him—that it was, it was a cancer” (353).

Laura James bandages Eugene’s hand and confesses her reciprocal love for him. As the young lovers dwell in their confessed love on the porch that evening, they confront the realities of their age difference. Eugene asks Laura to wait for him as he travels the world; Laura agrees.

After sending Laura to bed, Eliza joins Eugene on the porch and chides him for his newfound love with Laura. Eugene confronts his mother over the lack of love and comfort in her life, which prompts Eliza to proclaim, “I’ve done the best I could!” (358). Eugene, “touched deeply,” comforts her. Eliza shares her plans to build a house all of her own on a lot she purchased in Doak Park. Eugene allows Eliza to meander in her fantasy.

Eugene, retiring to bed, catches a glimpse of Laura watching him. After a romantic moment, he carries her to her bed before wishing her goodnight. The next morning Gant apologizes for hurting Eugene, who forgives him instantly. As they venture off on a picnic, Laura and Eugene stop by Gant’s house. Ben asks Eugene about his first year of university and advises him to cut his hair and to rely on his parents for money despite their claims of poverty. Before thrusting money onto Eugene and sending him on his way, Ben shares that he is taking a correspondence course in advertising in which he earns the highest grades.

Eugene and Laura embark on their picnic by traveling along the outskirts of Altamont. As the lovers bask in the outdoors, Laura confesses that though she loves Eugene, she plans to marry soon. However, after witnessing Eugene’s deep distress, Laura retracts her previous declaration and promises to wait for Eugene.

Laura James returns home for a Fourth of July celebration with her family, stating she will return within a week’s time. Shortly after her departure, she sends a letter to Eugene detailing her engagement of over a year with a man from Norfolk and their plans to elope. Bitter, Eugene replies to Laura’s letter in a pedantic display of his intelligence, “without anything but his pitiful and obvious desire to show her his weight in the point of his wit, the depth of his learning” (376). Laura does not reply.

The boarders openly discuss Eugene’s heartbreak in front of him. Furious and frustrated, Eugene rushes off. Ben follows him to the foundation of Dixieland, where Eugene rams his body into the side of the boardinghouse. As Ben attempts to stop Eugene’s self-destructive actions, Eugene rams Ben into the columns holding up Dixieland until Ben collapses.

Eugene soon finds himself entangled with an older prostitute boarder. Poor and jobless, Eugene pays the prostitute with the medals he won while at the Leonards’ school as pledges of future payment. Ben is once again rejected from the draft; Luke returns home for a short leave before his new training in the navy. The summer ends, and Luke leaves for his training. Ben, Helen, and Gant return to Baltimore for Gant’s treatment. Still heartbroken, Eugene returns to university, lashing out at his mother as she sees him off.