Christopher Moore and the Creation of the Beta Male
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fight” {Demonkeeping 36). With just this, he could be easily misconstrued for an
Alpha, but that is not the case, as evidenced by the way Moore describes Brine’s
home: “He kept his house neat and orderly. Not so much because he desired
order, for Brine believed chaos to be the way of the world, but because he did
not wish to make life difficult for his cleaning lady, who came in once a week to
dust and shovel ashes from the fireplace” {Demonkeeping 37). There’s a
definition for Beta if ever there was one. The big tough guy, the one who spends
his evenings “stretched out before his fireplace in a leather chair, toasting his
bare feet on the hearth, reading Aristotle, or Lao-tzu, or Joyce” {Demonkeeping
36) is worried about not hurting his cleaning girl’s feelings. This is not a guy to
be found chasing mammoths, but instead is a guy one can immediately
empathize with. And this is where Moore is leaving his literary mark.
Christopher Moore has defined a new style of character which writers now
have access to in their literary toolbox. And critics have a new way of looking
at, of judging, literary creations. The Beta Male walks proudly amongst other
literary creations (well, maybe a few steps behind and a little slouch-shouldered)
and now that he has been identified, there is no turning back. Everything will
have to be re-examined in this new context. Sure, there will always be a place
for the Alpha Male in modem fiction, but now there is a choice. In fact, it is that
choice which marks fans of the Beta. If we were Alpha, we wouldn’t need a
choice.
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Jaq Greenspon
Notes
1 Vincent Jouve, as quoted in George Hughes’s book Reading Novels, creates four
distinctions of characters:
Types—Characters who simply fulfill a function: the king who rules,
the witch in the fairy story who performs spells, the publican who
sells the hero a pint of beer.
Representative characters—Characters who represent a group or
class, such as the courtly Knight or the working class worker.
Individuals—Characters who move out of stereotyped roles and
show individuality.
Personalities—Characters portrayed with interior lives, or with a
sense of their own destiny, who can be seen as close to the
complexities of the reader. (Hughes 74)
Works Cited
Bear, Elizabeth. “Those Consistent Inconsistencies.” Storytellers Unplugged. May 8,
2007. .
Burnett, Hallie & Whit. Fiction Writer's Handbook. New York: Harper & Row
Publishers. 1979.
Hughes, George. Reading Novels. Is' ed. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2002.
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird. New York: Pantheon Books, 1994.
Moore, Christopher. Practical Demonkeeping. New York, Avon Trade Paperback, 2000.