The Wanderers by Alun Lewis
"The Wanderers" by Alun Lewis is a story that explores the complex dynamics of a Welsh woman married to a Gypsy, set against the backdrop of their nomadic lifestyle. The narrative centers on their son, Micah, who becomes the emotional lens through which the tumultuous relationship between his parents is portrayed. As the plot unfolds, the mother’s attraction to a French peddler leads to a series of events that further complicate their already unstable marriage. The themes of desire and conflict are prominent, revealing the primal instincts that drive the characters' actions and decisions.
Micah's experiences reflect the turmoil and confusion often felt by children caught in the midst of adult passions, as he grapples with fear and longing for stability. The story draws on certain stereotypes associated with Gypsy culture, portraying characters in ways that may evoke broader societal perceptions. Despite the narrative's tension, it ultimately highlights the intricate and often painful realities of love, desire, and the quest for belonging within a transient life. This work resonates with influences from writers like D. H. Lawrence, emphasizing the rawness of human emotion and experience.
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The Wanderers by Alun Lewis
First published: 1939
Type of plot: Realism
Time of work: The 1930's
Locale: Wales
Principal Characters:
Micah , a small boyThe Gipsy , his fatherMam , his motherJohnny Onions , a French peddler
The Story
Although this story focuses primarily on the marital relations of a Gypsy and his Welsh wife, the central character is the small child, Micah, for he is the one most affected by his parents' passions. The plot is simple. A Welsh woman has married the Gipsy, obviously because she was pregnant with the boy Micah, but also because, as she says, she does not like to live in houses. Their life, which gives the story its title, is one of wandering, peddling, haggling, and hiring themselves as laborers out whenever possible.
The central event of the story occurs when the wife sees her husband coming out of a barn with a farm girl and soon after becomes sexually attracted to a French peddler and has sex with him while her husband sleeps. The next morning, Micah tells his father that the peddler took his mother into the meadow during the night. While the Gipsy goes off with the peddler, presumably to beat him, the wife leaves to meet the peddler in another town.
After walking for hours, the wife gives up her quest, returns to the caravan, and has a physical fight with her husband, which sends Micah running in terror into the meadow. When the Gipsy finally tires of the fight, he and his wife have sex. When Micah returns and finds them asleep, he is content, knowing that when they awake everything will be the way he likes it.
The actions and passions of the story are reminiscent of the fiction of D. H. Lawrence, whose influence is clearly apparent here. This is a story of primitive desires, involving people practicing a wandering lifestyle. It depends on a stereotype of Gypsies as dark, violent, sexual creatures, homeless and almost animalistic in their desires—dark strangers that more civilized folk use as bogeymen with which to frighten young children. The story also depends on other reductive stereotypes. For example, when the Gipsy goes into town to pawn his wife's earrings, he deals with a "shrivelled little Jew" with a pointed nose and an ingratiating manner. It is similarly stereotypical that the Gipsy would have a literal "roll in the hay" with a somewhat mindless farm girl and that the man who is so alluring to the wife is a Frenchman.
Even the use of the little boy Micah as a central figure, slapped by his mother, boxed by his father, and terrified that his mother will be taken away by the peddler, is a convention based on the notion that children are often the bewildered victims of adult passions that they do not understand but instinctively fear. Micah intuitively knows that the Frenchman is a threat, for as he watches his mother talk to the peddler, Micah puts his arms around her and bites into the flesh at the nape of her neck, only to be thrown off quivering like an animal. Above all, he desires stability, the reassurance of the status quo, although the life that he has known with his wandering parents has hardly been ideal.