Emotional Roller Coaster Ride: A Response to Bellow's "Henderson the Rain King"

While reading this chapter from Bellow's "Henderson the Rain King," I was greatly affected by Gene, the protagonist's, many displays of emotion.  It was as if I was riding on an emotional roller coaster with him during his journey.  First, there were several times throughout the text wherein I questioned Gene's sanity.  He sounds completely illogical while on the plane to Africa when he says, "and I dreamed down at the clouds, and thought that when I was a kid I had dreamed up at them, and having dreamed at the clouds from both sides as no other generation of men has done, one should be able to accept his death very easily."  This phrase just does not sound coherent; Gene sounds schizophrenic talking about clouds and death in the same sentence.  I also questioned Gene's sanity when he decided to burn a bush to amuse children;  it doesn't seem sane to attempt to compensate not having a gift by destructing nature.

Now, for Gene's emotions.  It is clear that Gene pities himself.  He feels detached from the world and expresses that "the world was glad to lose track of [him] too for a while."  Gene also blames himself for circumstances that do not even concern him.  When a young woman, reminiscent of his daughter, begins to cry in front of him, Gene immediately and unthinkingly attributes her sorrow to his doing.  He goes as far as to say "[I shall] run back into the desert and stay there until the devil has passed out of me and I am fit to meet human kind again without driving it to despair at the first look."  This is a little excessive and dramatic...  Gene completely misconstrues others' emotions.  Gene also possesses an air of self-defeat.  As a result of his perceived detachment from society as well as his tendency to constantly blame himself, it is the path of least resistance for him to simply give up.  He displays self-defeat after the episode of the young girl bursting into tears when he expressed, "I was still not ready for society.  Society is what beats me."  Self-pity, self-blame, and self-defeat; definitely an emotional roller coaster ride with Gene Henderson.