Isaac Babel’s My First Goose is a very interesting short story highlighting the acceptance of a new propaganda officer into a Cossack regiment. When the narrator arrives, he is struck by Commander Savitsky’s size. While the commander gives the narrator a hard time, making fun of his glasses and calling him a ‘mama’s boy’, the majority of the harassment he receives comes from his peers—those in the sixth division of equal rank to the narrator. When reading Pravda, Lenin’s announcements for the day, he becomes too distracted and commands an old, blind woman to make him food. She voices her discontent with the Cossacks, saying all of this makes her want to kill herself. He shouts an expletive at her. Then, he accidentally kills a goose on the street in a very gory fashion, shouting another expletive at the now brainless and dead goose.
Interestingly, this causes the narrator’s peers to stop messing with him, one claiming that he will “fit in with us”. They even sleep together. Thus, an overreaction, a byproduct of the narrator’s rage, wins the Cossacks over. Judging by his awe of the Commander’s size in the beginning and distractedness in reading Lenin, one would think the narrator would be content with this new acceptance. However, the last line of the story is very important in proving the contrary. While the narrator, “saw women in my dreams”, a superficial ‘win’ for him, like the killing of the goose, “my heart, bloodstained from the killing, whined and dripped misery”, alluding to more structural discontent and shamefulness.
I wonder if this theme of assimilation into a group that didn’t share your values just for ostensible safety is a larger criticism of the culture of the Soviets and anti-Semitism at the time. I don’t know if this was written before or after Babel left Russia, but I read this as a tale of someone entering a new culture and having to sacrifice their beliefs in order to be accepted, much like the latter stages of the Revolution, and, I assume, much like being Jewish at any point throughout history. It may be because of my modern lens, but I read this as a criticism of those habits and that need to act hatefully in order to fit in, and I wonder if Babel meant it as a criticism of those kinds of social circles and social orders that were extensions of those behaviors.
Adding onto the theme of assimilation, I think a lot of what the story is showing is that while the need for assimilation in Soviet culture is an injustice, it is necessary in order to survive in the rather homogeneous society being built. Additionally, I think a similar message is conveyed regarding violence–that although violence is a vice and an evil it can not be avoided. I think that is a tension that Babel is getting at: that the need to assimilate and the presence of violence while they are wrong, are clearly present and unavoidable in society.
I saw the killing of the goose as more of a metaphor for a sexual act. The short text plays around with interesting word choice that is almost sexual especially in how the narrator describes his comrades. The fact that he was mocked until he killed the goose is almost like if he was loosing his virginity which is re-affirmed by the title “my first goose,” which could be read as my first woman. It is an interesting choice that the narrator then “sleeps” with his fellow male comrades. I don’t know if this is all nonsense, but it just felt very sexual. If it is true though I question the interesting relationship these men have with women in general. This bad relationship could be seen as the narrator curses at the old suicidal lady.
I would like to add to the discussion of the text’s homoerotic undertones. In addition to the descriptions of Commander Savitsky’s features and the violence and vulgarity of the Cossacks, there are also deep ties to toxic masculinity’s need to dominate. This ruthless domination is what leads the narrator to act against his character and brutally mutilate the goose and mistreat the old woman. These details add to the decay, gloominess, and overall corruption of the setting.The narrator’s faces the loss of his character in place of acceptance to the Sixth Division at the end, where the decay and misery for the narrator is brought to focus.
To briefly address the themes already discussed, I think that many of the acts of cruelty required for the Jewish man to transcend his marginalized position among the Cossacks is through claiming a dominant position through his masculinity. I think the story highlights the hypocrisy of objectifying women (through recurring motifs of sexual domination) and killing the goose when the narrator himself already occupies a subordinate position. These complexities highlight the interplay between sexuality and social power by showing how the reproduction of gender hierarchy serves as a claim to respect and superiority.