The book Water for Elephants by Sara Gruenn is full of rich accounts and actions. The reader is attracted into the vast arena of sideshows, elephants and ringmasters. One can also get experience about the conditions of nursing homes as also about old age. Indeed the book is remarkable in that one will never feel like putting it down and after reading it there is so much to ponder about in regard to the unique world of animals and circus life. It is evident that the writer has amply researched animal behaviours and circus life. Her cautious portrayal of the developments have manifested the work in becoming easy to read and descriptive, making the reader feel as if he or she is part of the circus family. This essay will make a brief summary of the book and examine it from the historical perspective whether there is any basis for the historical events depicted in the book.
Water for Elephants starts with a disastrous day at a circus with Jacob Jankowski confessing that he had hidden the information and kept it a secret for more than seventy years. Then the story takes a turn towards Jacob who is now about ninety years old and recouping in a nursing home. While Jacob is coping with the complications related to old age he gives an account of his life and experiences during the time he was with Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. The novel essentially moves from the narratives about the travelling circus in 1930 to the account of Jacob’s struggle in maintaining his mental balance. Although the majority of the book pertains to the circus, there are some chapters about the aging Jacob which make the story rather emotional and tender albeit much more real and richer.
Jacob Jankowski, as a young man is informed that his parents have died in a car accident which makes him feel isolated and without any goal and he boards a train which happens to be carrying the entire circus of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Since he had been pursuing a course to become a veterinary doctor, he was able to get a job in the circus as an animal doctor. While he performed his duties at the circus he came into close contact with August Rosenbluth, who had mercurial qualities, and his wife Marlena, who was beautiful and had exceptional equestrian capabilities that attracted people to the circus in large numbers.
Jacob is able to immerse himself into the strange world of the circus by interacting with lion tamers, aerialists, acrobats, people who mastered the art of swallowing swords, and by mastering a dialect that reflected a firm caste system. He came to know that performers are called Kinkers, Ringling Brothers are named Big Bertha and people in the audience are referred to as Rubes. Whenever an aged Jacob saw children in a circus carrying toys that blinked he immediately commented, “Bet their parents paid an arm and a leg for them, too. Some things never change. Rubes are still rubes, and you can still tell the performers from the workers’ ‘ (Sara Gruenn).
The circus troupe travels across the country and compromises on several of its acts which had become bankrupt due to the economy being ravaged by the Depression. The repressive and despotic ringmaster, Uncle Al, purchased Rosie, an elephant who proved to have a voracious desire for lemonade, but neither obeyed nor followed the simplest commands. With this failed investment, the circus appeared to have been doomed. At such a moment Jacob vehemently coaxed Rosie to perform her specialized acts, which saved the circus from a lot of problems and financial loss. The process whereby Jacob coaxed and influenced Rosie into acting in this manner forms the heart of the novel. The year 1931 is indeed a difficult period for the entire people of America and workers in the circus are equally hard hit. Most of them have lived in pecuniary and are almost jobless and homeless. Circumstances in the circus train are very harsh for most workers. Many of them are not paid for weeks and are sometimes thrown out of trains by the management (David Abrams, 2009).
Benzini Brothers are basically a seedy and second rate circus in which almost everybody suffers from a lack of confidence. The power and authority of the ringmaster Uncle Al is such that no one can dare to use the word Ringling in his presence. With the sudden death of the 400 pound lady Lucinda, Uncle Al orchestrated a funeral procession which was led by 24 black horses along with several mourners in competing for the reward of a bottle of whisky and three dollars that was to be given to the best performer in the show. This signifies that during such times of economic hardships prohibition was not prevalent. The circus as portrayed by Gruen signifies a frank mercantile morality and symbolizes the distorted dynamism of capitalism.
However oppressed or miserable the performers may have been, they enjoy the creation of illusions whereby a beaded head dress is prepared for Rosie and the llamas are fed while people died of starvation in an economically shattered America. The feigning of August in suffering from schizophrenia is symbolic of the indictment in which he spent an entire life in attempts to exploit human emotions to make a fast buck. However the story is narrated in a solemn and grave tone resulting from the economic vagaries of the Depression, the hardships and the ruthless business of a travelling circus and the cruel oppressors who make money on the backs of people who are compelled to obey them in order to make a living (Elizabeth Judd, 2006).
There are black and white photos of scenes of actual American circuses placed in the book which brightly enable one to experience the dignified power that is evident in the structure of this rather remarkable brotherhood. The gritty photographs in the book have captured the peculiar elegance of the elephants while they disembark from the train, the symmetrical march past by a band is worth the sight and the throng of elegantly dressed girls in circus attire stepping cautiously through a patch of lawn are all indicative of the discipline and culture prevalent in a circus.
Gruen keeps interrupting the story with Jacob’s experiences in the circus with narrations about his life as an old man in a nursing home. The chapters in regard to the nursing home are rich in detail but are not as lively as the narrations about circus life and the adventures that the entire team has to pass through as narrated in the novel. Jacob’s revelation amidst old age appears to be rather slow moving and in the end the author has tactfully diverted the disappointing memories towards the brighter side of circus life. It is actually the animals that are able to escape from the moral responsibilities as compared to those imposed upon the major characters. The connection of the main character’s name with a Biblical namesake appears to be weak in not conforming to the traits in the novel as exemplified in such a name. The ending is carefully laid out but does not appear to satisfy many readers in meeting up to their expectations, especially from a story that has so much in depth material to exploit. The book is however a good experience for all who have interest in the vicissitudes related to life in a circus.
The author makes one feel as if he is in a circus troupe, living life as they do and as they suffer from the economic hardships imposed by the economic adversities arising from the Depression. They eat the available food and get paid when there is enough money. They have to run away at times from the authorities when legal problems are created by someone within the troupe. They travel in the circus train unaware of where they are headed and have to cope with the circus management that treats most of them like dirt. There is quite a lot in the book about the personal life of circus owners and workers. One gets to know about how equipment and animals are brought into the circus by legal and illegal means. It is an eye opener in that after reading the book one wonders how such circus workers were able to exist in travelling extensively and in living a meagre and uncertain existence. The story, in referring back to Jacob in his nursing home reveals that he is not happy and when a circus is set up next to the nursing home where he is kept, he is very excited and waits anxiously for his family to come and take him to the big show.
The book is mostly recounted through flashbacks and Jacob’s narrative is seen as shifting back and forth between the days that he spent during the Depression years in the circus and the ones that he is now spending in the nursing home. At the nursing home he suffers from depression. The two stories of the different lives of Jacob do complement one another as he struggles with impending death and relives his past. The author has diligently researched all aspects of circus life as also about the feelings related to old age. Gruen has written an excellent novel that is romantic, heart twisting, funny and thrilling at the same time. The reader will fervently read through the pages with passion and excitement till the last pages of the book (Cy Hilterman, 2009).
Works Cited
Cy Hilterman, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.
David Abrams, The Big Flop.
ELIZABETH JUDD, Trunk Show, 2006, The New York Times.
Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants, 2006, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.