Flight

While manhood is something Pepé aspires to, Steinbeck uses his journey to reveal how instinct-driven and primal men can truly be. Pepé’s excitement about becoming a man is almost palpable when he is presented with an opportunity to provide for his family. When Mama Torres tells him he is to go to town there is “[a] revolution […] in the relaxed figure of Pepé” (30). He smiles at Mama Torres, his tone changes, and he jumps at the chance to assert his manhood, even if it is only by vowing to be responsible enough to avoid staining a handkerchief. This association of manhood with responsibility is fairly traditional and is also what Mama Torres has in mind when she remarks to herself that she will like having “a man” around again. Being a man here means fulfilling a particular societal role—e.g., as a provider and protector for one’s family.

However, the act that both Pepé and his mother identify as making him a man exists outside of that societal role and even outside of society itself: Pepé murders a man, breaking society’s laws and precipitating his journey into the wilderness. From this point on, he becomes increasingly less of a man (or even a human) in his struggle to survive, losing the things that he associates with manhood and beginning to exhibit animalistic behaviors. First Pepé loses his father’s hat and horse in an attempt to escape from the man pursuing him. When this happens, Pepé “move[s] with the instinctive care of an animal” as he flees to safety, sometimes running and sometimes “[wriggling] on his stomach” like a worm (42). Pepé continues to act on instinct after he leaves his father’s coat behind. Steinbeck writes that “[t]he journey uphill was made in dashes and rests, a frantic rush up a few yards and then a rest” (45). Pepé is frantic—a hunted animal who “dashes and rests” in his desperation to evade his pursuers. By the time he loses the final item, his father’s rifle, Steinbeck describes Pepé as moving “[w]ith the effort of a hurt beast” (47). All the trappings of the manhood he so desperately wanted are gone, leaving nothing behind but Pepé’s primal instinct to survive.

Pepé’s journey through the mountains raises the question of whether “manhood” is just a façade covering up humanity’s primal nature. This certainly seems true of the idealized masculinity Pepé initially coveted: What really makes him a man is his initiation into a world of violence. In practice, though, Pepé is notably out of place in this world, struggling to survive in the wild, where violence and killing are commonplace. This speaks to the nature of the murder itself. The text frames this moment, too, in instinctual terms rather than as a conscious decision: “The little quarrel—the man started toward Pepé and then the knife—it went almost by itself. It flew, it darted before Pepé knew it” (33). The wording does not even position Pepé as the agent, instead describing the knife itself as completing the action. By contrast, Pepé seems to allow his pursuers to shoot him in the story’s final moments; he struggles to his feet, makes the sign of the cross, and presents himself as a target. If manhood and violence are intertwined, the story suggests that the difference between men and animals lies in choosing to engage with violence on one’s own terms.