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Trey asks Cal about the differences between manners, etiquette and morals. Cal answers, “Etiquette is the stuff you gotta do just ’cause that’s how everyone does it…Manners is treating people with respect…Morals…is the stuff that doesn’t change. The stuff you do no matter what other people do.” (pg 264-265) Do you agree with Cal’s definitions and distinctions? In what ways is morality explored in The Searcher?
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I agree with these distinctions, but Cal already knows that his definition of “morals” is oversimplified. He’s a black-and-white man who has been forced to navigate through the grey areas in his personal and professional life. Not being able to see his own code anymore was the deeper reason that he retired from the police. He’s in Ireland trying to sort that out, and finds that nothing is black and white – not Mart, not Trey. Even a trip to Noreen’s store is fraught with pitfalls. We see Cal evolving through the story.
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A great point about how even a trip to Noreen’s is fraught with choices and challenges. I’d add the pub to the list too as it’s initially welcoming and then becomes dangerous.
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I agree with Cal’s definitions of etiquette and manners. He says that morality is the stuff that doesn’t change and then defines it as “just doing right by people” and telling Trey that “you gotta come up with your own code.” So, it seems that morality is fluid in this book, depending if the situation keeps the status quo. Trey brings cookies, cupcakes, pie, etc. when she comes to work with Cal who “is pretty sure where this stuff comes from, and he feels a mild twinge of guilt about eating it anyway, but he figures things will be more peaceful if he doesn’t get into that. For the locals, it doesn’t seem that there is right or wrong; they buy silence or cooperation with threats, coercion or beatings. At one point, Cal thinks of telling Trey a story of what happened to her brother (which he has been told to do), but he doesn’t know whether he should. “This seems like the kind of thing he should know instantly, on instinct, but he has no idea whether it would be right or wrong. This unsettles him right down to the bottom of his guts. It implies that somewhere along the way, he got out of practice doing the right thing, to the point where he doesn’t even know it when he sees it.” He has lost his moral compass. Fortunately, Trey’s and his beating puts him back on searching for the truth. When he finds that truth, he knows that it is his duty to take what he has learned about Brendan and drugs to Officer Dennis, but he knows that he can’t in order to protect Trey.
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Cal spent a lot of time trying to teach Trey right from wrong. He explains that having morals is … “the stuff that doesn’t change. The stuff you do no matter what other people do. Like if someone’s an asshole to you, you might not be mannerly to him; you might tell him to go fuck himself, or even punch him in the face. But if you see him trapped in a burning car, you’re still gonna open the door and pull him out. However much of an asshole he is. That’s your morals.” Instead of defining morals in complicated language that Trey will have trouble attaching meaning to he puts it in terms to which she can relate. He frames it based on her lifestyle. His explanation shows Trey where the line is. Now she has a foundation upon which she can build her own moral code.
Cal is having to look at his moral code differently when he finds out Trey is in fact a female. Not that anything improper has occurred but misinterpretations of their relationship can be disastrous for everyone involved. Now he must, as an adult man, respond to her differently than if she was in fact the boy he thought she was. He needs to figure out how to befriend her without damaging her reputation.
Once Cal finds out what has happened to Brendan he must look at his code when deciding what to do about Mart and the other farmer’s roles in Brendan’s disappearance. Does he turn Mart in to the cops or let it go? Mart says he acted out of his desire to protect a way of life that has served his community forever. Now Cal, a retired police officer, has to wrestle with his conscious and instincts about turning Mart and the other farmers in for their part in Brendan’s death even though it was supposedly accidental. They did, in fact, impede justice. His struggle now is how to remain where he seems to like living, but still be able to live with himself for being part of the coverup. I think he also cares greatly about how his decision will impact Trey who really needs his guidance and friendship.
As for Mart’s moral code it seems to be missing. In his mind anything goes as long as it’s for the greater good of those living in this rural community. For the people he sees as his family. He does not show remorse for any of his actions. His greatest concern is what will Cal and Trey do with the information they now possess?
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Wonderful insights Libby. Cal really becomes a mentor and teacher to Trey. I think children learn the majority of their manners, etiquette and morals from the adults around them. I remember how my mother had a strict rule of no elbows on the table when dining. Some people might think that an odd thing to enforce but for my mother elbows on the table was disrespectful and bad manners. It was something she learned from her parents, and then handed down. So manners and morals are also generational.
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Actually, I kind of liked Cal’s breakdown of etiquette, manners and morals. Simplistic, yes, but also reasonably accurate, I think. Morality should be foundational. It should not be transactional or situational but neither is it cut and dried. It is possible to have personal as well as community or religious standards and sometimes they may be in conflict.
That is the issue I see Cal weighing. As others have noted, he is faced with how to respond to and help Trey, how to confront Mart and his accomplices, or not, and what that means for him. I think Cal understood that as a cop; that not every transgression of the law was a moral failing or worthy of punishment. I think it is pretty much mostly Cal who struggles with morality in “The Searcher” but it is certainly a theme of the story. I don’t think one can appreciate Cal unless you also look at his deliberations and what they cost him.
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I think Cal’s definition is mostly right. But the three manners, etiquette, and morals are constantly challenged when they come against an individual, group, or culture that has different definitions of them. One would like to think that morals don’t change and are fixed, but as others have pointed out, one of the central themes of the book is Cal trying to define his morality and fix his moral compass. The story he remembers about his policing days with the Black youth punctuates this. And the quote that Nancy references – where he’s debating what to tell Trey about her brother – is another moment where he recognizes that he’s lost his way.
As Jane and Amy point out, Cal thinks morality is something a person should almost have as an instinct. It should be “black and white.” But through his search for Brendan and helping Trey, I think his outlook is maturing and becoming more nuanced. I think through helping Trey and exposing Mart, he grows and finds his way back to his moral centre. The two are like a scale of light and dark that Cal balances through his actions and through which Cal balances himself.
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I also found the account of the incident where his partner almost shot and killed an unarmed black youth particularly central to Cal’s sense of morality. Actually, morality almost sounds superficial. For Cal, his “code” is really what grounds him and the possibility that he might have violated that is what decides his retirement.
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I, too, am in agreement with Cal’s basic interpretations of manners, etiquette, and morals, and I agree with Jane that it is Cal who seems to give those concepts the most thought and be most troubled by them. It made me really appreciate him as a character. Not only does he want to understand himself and his motives and choices, he wants to help Trey find her best self, and understands that these concepts are important if she’s going to achieve that. Without guidance, it’s hard for a young person to see clearly anything other than what’s in front of them in their daily life; and if those examples are flawed, as they often are in Trey’s case, they may never learn to develop a good moral compass. Maybe that’s what happened to Mart. Trey is fortunate to find Cal as a role model; and also to have someone like Lena in her corner. And Cal, unlike Mart, continues to question his own morality and never conveniently abandons his conscience or writes things off without at least having examined all angles of the situation. He is a “white hat cowboy” at his core, but as Amy mentioned, he must wade through the grey areas with a certain amount of pragmatism and decide where he needs to stand in order to serve his conscience and the people he cares about best.
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