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Gloves
The Swede’s adopted home of rural Old Rimrock represents the illusory nature of the Swede’s American ideals. After inheriting his father Lou Levov’s prosperous glove factory, the Swede moves with his family out of the predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Newark where he grew up and into the serene, pastoral bliss of the surrounding New Jersey countryside. Lou Levov sharply criticizes the Swede’s plans, citing the prejudices that exist beyond the relatively progressive environment of urban Newark. But the Swede disregards Lou’s warnings, deeming them the paranoid ramblings of a man who, for all his progressive leanings, continues to live in the past. For the Swede, Old Rimrock represents the realization of his American Dream: it is evidence that a relative outsider like himself—a Jewish man and a descendent of recent immigrants—can move beyond his roots to achieve upward mobility and gain acceptance among mainstream American society.
At first, life in Old Rimrock is everything the Swede hoped it would be. He plays the part of the dutiful family man and breadwinner, while Dawn takes advantage of the ample land to start a cattle-ranching business. Young Merry thrives. Everything changes, however, with the onset of the Vietnam War. Seemingly at once, the cultural and political atmosphere of the country shifts, and the optimism that gripped the nation in the early postwar years seems to dissolve. Merry, now a teenager, becomes radically opposed to the war and to predatory American capitalism, condemning her parents for the immorality of their bourgeois lifestyle. Things come to a head when Merry bombs Old Rimrock’s post office in a violent act of political protest, killing a local doctor and eviscerating all the fulfillment and security the Swede has attached to Old Rimrock.
In the aftermath of Merry’s crime and subsequent disappearance, the Swede must reconsider whether his formerly idyllic life in Old Rimrock—and the larger American Dream it represents—was really as sustainable, dependable, or real as he once thought. By the end of the novel, the Swede comes to see Old Rimrock as a mocking reminder of the illusory nature of his American Dream. The optimism and economic prosperity that fueled the postwar America of his young adulthood was not proof of a new, better world, he eventually understands. Rather, it was merely a random, fleeting period of good fortune that distracted from the looming threat of unexpected and unexplainable chaos, violence, and suffering. When a drunk Jessie Orcutt violently and inexplicably stabs Lou Levov with a fork at the Levovs’ dinner party which concludes the novel, the bizarre, random violence of the outside world at last infiltrates Old Rimrock, completing the Swede’s gradual disillusionment with the American ideals he once held dear.
Old Rimrock Quotes in American Pastoral
The American Pastoral quotes below all refer to the symbol of Old Rimrock . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3
Quotes
“[…] Quaint Americana. Seymour was into quaint Americana. But the kid wasn’t. He took the kid out of real time and she put him right back in. My brother thought he could take his family out of human confusion and into Old Rimrock, and she put them right back in. Somehow she plants a bomb back behind the post office window, and when it goes off it takes out the general store too. And takes out the guy, this doctor, who’s just stopping by the collection box to drop off his mail. Good-bye, Americana; hello, real time.”
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Chapter 5
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Almost immediately after the reconstitution of her face to its former pert, heart-shaped pre-explosion perfection, she decided to build a small contemporary house on a ten-acre lot the other side of Rimrock ridge and to sell the big old house, the outbuildings, and their hundred-odd acres. […] When he overheard her telling the architect, their neighbor Bill Orcutt, that she had always hated their house, the Swede was as stunned as if she were telling Orcutt she had always hated her husband.
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Mrs. Conlon had said, “You are as much the victims of this tragedy as we are. The difference is that for us, though recovery will take time, we will survive as a family. We will survive as a loving family. We will survive with our memories intact and with our memories to sustain us. It will not be any easier for us than it will be for you to make sense of something so senseless. But we are the same family we were when Fred was here, and we will survive.”
The clarity and force with which she implied that the Swede and his family would not survive made him wonder, in the weeks that followed, if her kindness and her compassion were so all-encompassing as he had wanted at first to believe.
He never went to see her again.
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They are crying intensely, the dependable father whose center is the source of all order, who could not overlook or sanction the smallest sign of chaos—for whom keeping chaos far at bay had been intuition’s chosen path to certainty, the rigorous daily given of life—and the daughter who is chaos itself.
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Chapter 7
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The only thing worse than their never seeing her again would be their seeing her as he had left her on the floor of that room. Over these last few years, he had been moving them in the direction, if not of total resignation, of adaptation, of a realistic appraisal of the future. How could he now tell them what had happened to Merry, find words to describe it to them that would not destroy them? They haven’t the faintest picture in their mind of what they’d see if they were to see her. Why does anyone have to know? What is so indispensable about any of them knowing?
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Chapter 9
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But whether he was or wasn’t running the show no longer mattered, because if Merry and Rita Cohen were connected, in any way, if Merry had lied to him about not knowing Rita Cohen, then she might as easily have been lying about being taken in by Sheila after the bombing. If that was so, when Dawn and Orcutt ran off to live in this cardboard house, he and Sheila could run off to Puerto Rico after all. And if, as a result, his father dropped dead, well, they’d just have to bury him. That’s what they’d do: bury him deep in the ground.
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Yes, the breach had been pounded in their fortification, even out here in secure Old Rimrock, and now that it was opened it would not be closed again. They’ll never recover. Everything is against them, everyone and everything that does not like their life. All the voices from without, condemning and rejecting their life!
And what is wrong with their life? What on earth is less reprehensible than the life of the Levovs?
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Old Rimrock Symbol Timeline in American Pastoral
The timeline below shows where the symbol Old Rimrock appears in American Pastoral. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...company, commuting to Central Avenue from his home in the wealthy, rural town of Old Rimrock—“a long way from the tannery floor where Grandfather Levov had begun in America […].”
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Chapter 3
...talking about—Merry? A bomb? Jerry explains that the Swede’s daughter, Meredith “Merry” Levov, was the “‘Rimrock Bomber’” who blew up the local post office, killing a local doctor who just happened...
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...beautiful couple. “She’s post-Catholic, he’s post-Jewish, together they’re going to go out there to Old Rimrock and raise little post-toasties,” Jerry jokes wryly. Jerry explains that “Miss Dwyer” was never satisfied...
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...of his life. He will go to the old Newark Maid factory, to the old house on Keer Avenue, to Merry’s old high school in Old Rimrock, and to all the...
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After staying with the Umanoffs one night, Merry returns to Old Rimrock and complains to the Swede about the couple, accusing them of simply performing liberalism as...
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...also respecting her. He tells Merry he understands that she’s tired of life in Old Rimrock, and he promises her that they can work on her going away to school in...
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In a later argument, the Swede suggests that Merry bring her activism home to Old Rimrock. Plenty of people there support the war—she could actually stand to change some minds if...
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Chapter 4
...bombing. Apparently, Merry had gone around school the day before telling her peers, “Quaint Old Rimrock is in for a big surprise.” This is the evidence against her, for in fact...
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Chapter 5
...and feels renewed confidence in herself. From there, she decides to build a new, modern house on a lot the other side of Rimrock ridge with plans to sell the old...
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But the Swede can’t ignore Dawn’s determination to sell the house. He even refrains from pointing out the real reason she wants to be done with...
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Chapter 6
...what it means to be a man, to be a father. Living in picturesque Old Rimrock, the Swede doesn’t know about America—how “frightening” and chaotic it is. All the Swede knows...
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...Swede for his fake life—for the Jewish Swede and Catholic Dawn living out in Old Rimrock, “playing at being Wasps.” The Swede thought he could keep up that charade without having...
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Chapter 7
...the Swede it will cost a fortune to heat the hulking, antique mansion in Old Rimrock. And besides, what does the Swede need all that land for? “You’re dreaming,” Lou tells...
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The Swede refuses to back down and goes ahead with the move to Old Rimrock. He knows Lou is right—prejudice still exists. But Old Rimrock is a civilized place, and...
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In Old Rimrock (though it somewhat embarrasses the Swede to admit it) he feels like Johnny Appleseed, who...
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Dawn insists Bill Orcutt’s paintings are thought provoking and buys one—for $5,000. In the house in Old Rimrock, Dawn hangs the new painting, Meditation #27, over the spot they used...
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...At once, all of Dawn’s insults about Orcutt make perfect sense: “The unfaithfulness to the house was never unfaithfulness to the house. It was unfaithfulness.”
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Chapter 9
...in 1959, both sides of the family got together each year for Thanksgiving in Old Rimrock. Dawn’s father and Lou even got along well, reminiscing to each other about the way...
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...that “the breach had been pounded in their fortification, even out here in secure Old Rimrock,” and that things will never be the same again.
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