VLVL2 (3): The Temptation of Zoyd

Tim Strzechowski dedalus204 at comcast.net
Thu Aug 14 22:43:06 CDT 2003


The Gospel of Matthew (4:1-11) states:

  Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

  And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered.

  And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

  But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

  Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

  And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

  Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

  Again, the devil taketh him up into  an exceedingly high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the story of them;

  And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

  Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

  Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him. [...]

Just thinkin' in test here:

I am no biblical scholar by any stretch of the imagination, but to me there seem to be interesting parallels between the story of the temptation of Christ and the Hector/Zoyd conversation that comprises most of Chapter Three.

If we consider aging hippie Zoyd as the parallel of Jesus in this scene (perhaps alluding to the long-haired "Jesus" look of the late-Sixties) and Hector as the devil, a certain level of temptation is being imparted upon Zoyd as Hector attempts to enlist Zoyd's assistance in locating Frenesi.

Both the Matthew passage and the VL chapter establish food and nourishment as the basis for the interaction between both characters. Z and H are "sitting at a table in the rear of the restaurant at Vineland Lanes" and Hector, reinforcing his "otherness," "began to take apart piece by piece and reassemble [his vegetarian tostada] as something else Zoyd could not identify but which seemed to hold meaning for Hector" (25). From the beginning of this scene Zoyd is equated with "droppin [his food] all over the place, includin [his] shirt," something which we are all guilty of (and in narrative terms establishing a certain empathy with the reader), whereas Hector, by taking apart and reassembling his food, achieves a mild level of mystery and otherworldliness, especially when that reassembled food "seem[s] to hold meaning for Hector."

As the conversation progresses in the biblical passage, the devil takes Jesus to three separate locations to attempt his temptation: the wilderness, the temple, and the mountain.  Does the Zoyd/Hector conversation in any ways parallel this structure?

Tim 

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