Sometimes a Great Notion

Hank is a hardheaded, obstinate, and at times violent man. He thus exemplifies key traits of the Stamper men. Yet he is also willing to reach out to Lee and welcome him to Oregon despite the brothers’ complicated history. He plays the part of the big brother, chiding Lee that “[h]e can cuss too” despite what he has “learned in college” (211), yet also caring for Lee’s comfort. Hank appears to have had an about-face from what he said about Lee as a child: “[h]e ain’t my little brother” (39).

Despite his tendency to engage in senseless bar fights, Hank has a vulnerable side, as revealed in his attempt to raise three bobcat kittens, his inability to let high school football memories rest, or even his time fighting in the Korean War. Loyal to the Stamper motto of “NEVER GIVE A INCH!,” Hank does not bow to Draeger’s offer to buy out the family logging business until Joe Ben drowns and Henry is gravely injured. In that moment, Hank is brought down and humbled. Hank eventually even goes against his word to stop his strikebreaking logging operation, angered by the pity he receives from townspeople. Rejoined by Lee, Hank rediscovers what is important to him and recommits to his independence.

Hank’s adored wife Viv is mysterious, more aloof and unknown than the men that surround her. Having lost her parents in her youth, Viv lives like a blank slate, eager for an undefined “someone” to rescue her and give her life meaning. This is why she readily agrees to follow Hank to Oregon soon after they meet. Though she fills the role of dutiful housewife to Hank—feeding him delicious meals that others covet, keeping house, and tending his wounds—Viv’s inner life contrasts with that of Hank. She finds solace in the birds and plants of the wilderness, and in books, “some ragged with reading, some never opened [on a] bookcase forming a floor-to-ceiling fortress of words” (231).

Viv openly admits her loneliness to Hank, a condition made worse when the Stampers become town pariahs for interfering with the strike. Soon Viv realizes that her problems run much deeper than loneliness. She is unsatisfied because her life in Oregon with Hank has not materialized the symbols of a full life she wanted: children, birds, and short hair. By the end of the novel, Viv acknowledges that she does not understand the Stampers. A vision of a child version of herself convinces her of how she has avoided what she desires. These admissions free her to decide to leave Oregon and the Stampers. Ultimately, Viv shows an independence that is more radical even than the Stampers’ infamous self-reliance and obstinacy.

Hank and Lee’s cousin Joe Ben is like a brother to them. He and Hank are particularly close because their relationship is not built on a rivalry, like the relationship between Lee and Hank. Joe Ben is less flawed and more even-keeled than either of his cousins. This is most evident in Joe Ben’s faith and spiritual beliefs, which neither Hank nor Lee share. On Halloween, for instance, Joe Ben anoints his children’s heads with his own spit, and he attends church events (Lee, accompanying him to one, quickly decides to leave).

When a tree pins Joe Ben down in the Wakonda, he and Hank share their most intimate moment, as Hank attempts to keep Joe Ben alive by passing mouthfuls of air to him underwater. Hank cannot allow himself to experience grief without a layer of masculine toughness: Even as Joe Ben is about to drown, Hank mocks Joe Ben’s faith: “I thought all you had to do was call your Big Buddy and He’d just aim His finger an’ the water’d just hallelujah snap back from you” (579). Yet Joe Ben’s Christ-like death (a comparison made literal when Hank has to nail Joe Ben’s arms to a tree to retrieve his corpse) breaks Hank. Joe Ben’s loss is critically important in driving the evolution of other characters and the plot of the novel as a whole.