The Bottoms

Mark Sawyer

ENGL 1302-C05

Professor Morley

10 Nov. 2010

Gaining Insight, Losing Innocence

Joe R. Lansdale illustrates a loss of innocence throughout “The Bottoms.” In the story, a young boy, Harry, helps his father investigate a serious of horrendous murders happening around his small home town. As he follows the trail of the bottoms killer, Harry, just 11 years old, witnesses many new and troubling actions and concepts; he is forced to grow up fast. He learns about a serial killer who takes satisfaction from strange and brutal sexual abuse and murder of innocent women from this sleepy little town. As Harry matures and loses his innocence, so does the small, isolated town of Marvel Creek.

One of the first major steps towards losing their innocence for both Harry and the town of Marvel Creek is the discovery of the first victim of the bottoms killer. Clearly still in the innocence of childhood, Harry and his sister have failed to commit their own “killing;” the euthanizing of their dog, Toby. Upon returning home, they stumble across the dead body of a woman near the river bank (Lansdale 16). This is an eye opener for Harry as he has never seen anything remotely as horrific as a woman tied up with barbwire and cut all over her body.

Jacob, Harry’s father, takes the body to an ice house in Pearl Creek, the nearby colored community, so Doc Tinn could examine the body and determine the cause of death. In Pearl Creek, Harry sneaks a better look at the victim, marking the first time he has ever seen a naked woman. Not only at this point in his life is he seeing mature girl parts for the first time but he was also able to see what the killer did to her body by cutting on those parts. Harry also overhears in Doc Tinn’s extremely graphic theories of how the victim suffered (Lansdale 78-85). As Doc Tinn explains the definition of a clitoris to Jacob, the readers sees how Harry makes a mental note to himself that the knowledge would later be useful. Through hearing...