Like father; Like Son: Kronos devours his young
It took a walk through the Iron Bound section of
The pieces of the War of the World puzzle tumbled in my mind, but it took seeing the location of the movie set and its icons to put them together.
If War of the Worlds is about a father and his children and Steven Spielberg uses Greek mythology as part of his subtext, then it is very, very difficult to avoid the father and son relationship between Kronos and his son, Zeus in comparing Ray and his son, Robbie.
These essays have touched upon Kronos earlier when he answered his mother’s call to rise up against his own father, Heaven. But we did not delve into the secondary and perhaps more relevant tale that deals with the father-son relationship of Kronos and Zeus.
The Newark scenes are ripe with these references, but it took my walking there to recognize the avenue Spielberg took to get to it, most likely filtering the Kronos myth through an image by an artist named Durand – who in turn appears to have been influenced by the Spanish and very religious Spanish painter, Goya who interpreted Kronos as a father who devours his own children rather than let them grow up. Kronos, in Goya’s view, felt the children would become better adults than he was. Zeus survives this devouring when his mother wraps a rock in baby’s clothing while leading Zeus to safety.
It is for this reason that the issue of food is so relevant, as raised in other essays about what is appropriate or not – and as pointed out, devouring people, especially your own children, is not acceptable behavior for a civilized society. (see food for thought ) The image of feeding is thrown at us again and again, even in images that are not typically digestive stuff – such as the failure of the news truck to get anyone to take their feed. – indeed, the image of the alien riding a lightning bolt (an image of Zeus) into the earth is in itself something of a feeding image as well as sexual as the mother earth devours her young and gives birth to a monster. In one version of the myth, the Mother Earth does indeed accidentally devour a piece of the child which some believe gave birth to the Christian image of sharing of flesh and blood as depicted in Durand’s painting.
Spielberg’s Newark set seems to pay visual homage to the Durand painting in which we have a David Bowie-looking Kronos with one foot on a sickle and one foot on a church, symbolic of the east-west religious wars that have led to the attack on the Twin Towers on Sept. 11 – thus serving to connect several of Spielberg’s themes. Even the earth opens at his feet like a devouring mouth in both War of the Worlds and the Durand image.
Few symbols seem to fit the character relationship between Ray and his children, but especially, Ray’s son, Robbie, than does the jealous Kronos seeking to keep his kids from growing. – and explains why Ray’s letting Robbie go later is so important.
Keeping kids in their place is not a new theory. Sociologists point to the fact that working class parents often frown on their children aspiring to higher social positions. This theme is seen most clearly in the film Educating Rita, where Rita’s seeking to grow intellectually causes her to lose her husband and her whole former way of life.
In Kronos and perhaps in War of the World tales, jealousy causes Kronos to devour his children, and in some ways, Ray also seeks to keep his children from being too different – although oddly enough, he and Robbie conflict most because of how similar they are.
In touring the
Henry Sanchez, the owner of the house used for the filming, had a much longer look at the sets and defined Ray as something of a slob.
Ray appears to be a classic case of working class slob, someone who has allowed his life to get more than a little untidy after the breakup of his marriage – the way males often do also when freed of rules set in place by scolding mothers. I knew dozens of his sort growing up. In fact, several Rays raised me.
Ray’s kitchen and home are filled with bits of junk, items that are left where
they are dropped, in much the matter of a child who has refused to grow up. Pizza
boxes are stacked on his chairs. Automotive parts and tools litter his living
space in much the way the crashed jet airliner does later outside the home of
his ex-wife in
This is not the stuff of a good father since he seems to be a much of a child as his children are – or perhaps more childish. This is reflected strongly in greeting his son, Robbie, when Robbie rushes past him towards the house.
“What no hug? No confused handshake? No kick in the teeth?” Ray says, then turns to his wife and says, “Still working on his manners?”
From what we see of Robbie, he seems destined to turn out just like his father – avoiding his term paper in much the same manner that Ray avoids his own responsibilities, lying about its current state in the same way Ray lies about the time he was supposed to be home to greet the ex wife and take charge of the kids for the weekend.
Father and son are stubborn in the same ways.
Ray pays very little attention to what his kids like or dislike, or the many small things in their lives. He doesn’t listen to them. But when Robbie rushes to the house, he doesn’t listen to his father. Neither father nor son seem capable of budging and inch in their prejudices, where one is a NY Yankee fan, the other must adopt the Boston Red Sox.
This conflict comes not out of their basic differences, but by how similar they are. Both are hard headed. Both appear to have similar interests. Ray loves fast cars. Robbie steals his father’s Mustang to go joy riding.
Even their relationships to Mary Ann are similar. Both lie to her, and fail to get away with their lying. Ray even acts the role of a guilty child when he makes excuses for the condition of the house when Mary Ann walks through it, and carefully closes the door to his bedroom so that she cannot see his unmade bed and dirty laundry strewn about.
The one overriding difference seems to be their relationship with Rachel. While both Ray and Robbie clearly care for the young girl, Robbie actually listens to her and protects her, in a way Ray does not, as if in this one regard, Robbie has taken over role as father that Ray fails to fulfill.
Robbie already shares his sister’s secrets, and she trusts him in a way that she does not trust her father. This is most highlighted during the scenes just after she sees the bodies floating in the Hudson River and Robbie yells at the passing military to let him join. She yells, “who’s going to take care of me?” even though her father is standing there. Ray, of course, still hasn’t a handle on his kids, and threatened to create a list of infractions to give to their mother if they did not behave.
The movie as pointed out in previous essays is about Ray’s being reborn as father, and his learning those things he needs to regain his role as father. One of these lessons, of course, is the Kronos lesson, that you shouldn’t devour your own children to keep them from fulfilling their potential. At some point, you have to let go of your children and let them aspire to their own heights.
Yet a good portion of the movie is a practical lesson in Ray’s learning to listen to his children – and how to become intimate with them. Ray must start from scratch to learn about his children and how protect them, forgetting about the van during the Athens scenes to concentrate on rescuing his son and daughter. Moment by moment, Ray acquires the knowledge needed to live up to the title he insists his son use, becoming more and more responsible, even as the monsters of his dream continue to devour other humans around him.
The most dramatic and most emotionally charged moment of the movie comes when Ray must make Sophie’s Choice, when he must choose between his children – when his son says “You must let me go” and Ray does, ceasing his Kronos-like need to keep Robbie from maturing.
In the basement with the Tim Robbins character, Ray begins his final lessons, about social threats that his daughter must be protected from and about the intimate moments of sharing that fathers and children engage in as part of what makes civilized behavior possible. While he doesn’t know her songs, he shares one he does with her, and that is the foundation upon which our society is based.
All this is not wasted on Ray. When the aliens make their final attempts to get his daughter, Ray responds, first cutting the eye of the alien – symbolic of the Medusa myth – and later, bundling grenades and pushing them into the belly of the beast much in the way mother earth bundled the stones that allowed her to keep Zeus from being devoured. Zeus later dethrones Kronos, and banishes him, taking his place as the head of the family of gods.