Andre Dubus’s “Rose” Theological view

In “Rose”, the last short story by Andre Dubus our group has read, Dubus ties a seemingly unrelated string of people together: the weak boy who tried to be a soldier, the volunteers who offered to die for a cure for yellow fever, and Rose herself. First we’ll look at the boy who decided to join the army. Dubus writes from experience here, he was in the Marines until some incident caused him to quit. Therefore, he probably witnessed many examples of what he shows in this story. Here the boy is very weak, but decided to volunteer anyway. The drill sergeants know right away that this boy will never make it but they do not dismiss him immediately. Instead, they try to break him, submitting him to the most grueling training imaginable designed to break his spirit, and eventually make him quit. He is surrounded by doubters who keep telling him he can’t do it. But while asleep, he is released from his doubt and is able to do amazing things, such as lift a 200 pound locker with only his arms. Dubus notes him as a volunteer who really could do it but was unrecognized. The medical volunteers of the story are probably not true, as Dubus suggests they may have been convicts forced into it, but he leaves the hope of some people so giving of themselves that they will die voluntarily to save their brothers, especially to cure millions of people. Rose is ultimately the most notable volunteer of the story. She does, for most of it, stand by idly and simply fall into despair as she watches her relationship with Jim fall apart as he becomes a child abuser. Her sin is one of inaction, as she herself desperately wishes that she hit him with the skillet in the first place. But in the end she redeems herself as she selflessly rushes to save her children who are trapped in a burning apartment and leaves Jim forever to protect her children. The three are all examples of the ideal of a selfless volunteer that Dubus glorifies in this story, even if the volunteers themselves go unrecognized.