Assignment #3: Local Color and Impressionism/Realism

"In Search of Local Color" by Brander Matthews appears to be a story grounded in realism, impressionism and the human condition. Curiously, our main character Rupert De Ruyter, is in search "fresh impressions" when he asks his friend John Suydam to take him to the poorest of the poor for a taste of local color. This story leads the author down a road where we examine the human condition in its worst state, at its basest. De Ruyter is interested in the permanence of the tenement people when he describes the Chinese quarter as nothing more than "a mere accidental excrescence" and the tenement people as "people [that] have come to stay". What would be his interest in their permanence? The Chinese and their "barbarous" and  "exotic"  ways are flaky and material, they won't last any longer than the thread of their colorful clothing and decorations. The tenement people will always be there, in their dank filth and crowded homes. They last simply because that is what they do best, survive. Suydam, when asked about how the poor Italians live in that dank basement, replies "They don't live,". That is a perfect way to describe how the poor live day to day, they survive by being the most resilient.

This whole trip is an event generated by Mr. De Ruyter as a way to see some of the local color and get some "fresh impressions" to help with his story that he is writing for the magazine. Yet strangely, he doesn't seem too surprised or even concerned with the condition of the people there. in fact, De Ruyter seems to believe that the existence of the poor people in Mulberry Bend are a microcosm for existence itself and he is "interested" by it. He "felt as though he was receiving an impression of life itself" found it, "unfailingly interesting", and by bearing a cold observation of the human condition as nothing but "interesting", he denies his own humanity. He makes that statement as though he is an observer from another planet, or maybe even the author of existence himself. Near the end of the story when the police are out looking for Pietro and it is revealed that Pietro killed his wife, De Ruyter does not react with surprise, but of an author putting together the final pieces of the story.In fact he says that he can get a "good mot de la fin", or last word. For me,D Ruyter is like a kid with an ant colony, watching and analyzing but not caring.

I suppose that I find De Ruyter's character and his intentions problematic, but Matthews could have used him as a foil to the poor people who live as honestly as they can. De Ruyter is cold and unattached from the human condition, he uses it for his entertainment and ignores the reality of the situation. The poor people live that life on an everyday basis, and because they do they are closer to being what it means to be human than anyone else in the story.