Caleb Meyer Rhetorical Analysis

Narrative Criticism of Gillian Welch’s “Caleb Meyer”

“Caleb Meyer,” a compelling bluegrass song written by Gillian Welch, tells of the narrator’s struggle while a drunken man rapes as she fights for her life. The dramatic crescendo throughout the song creates a narrative that forces the audience to the edge of their seats as they anticipate anxiously what will happen next. Welch uses persuasive narrative rhetoric throughout the song to create her message, one that any moral person will find difficult to sympathize with. Throughout this essay I will identify “Caleb Meyer” as a rhetorical narrative, criticize its form and function, and evaluate its effectiveness. In order to criticize “Caleb Meyer” using Rowand’s method of narrative criticism,
Caleb Meyer is established as a lonely, drunken abusive male whose purpose in the artifact is to create conflict to allow resolution (he rapes the narrator and pays the price). The narrator is a married woman whose husband has left her home alone while away on business. Her function is to tell a story and create Welch’s message. She is established as religious (prays to God and believes in Hell [Caleb Meyer your ghost is gonna wear them rattling chains]), brave, and resilient. Meyer represents the abusive, alcoholic male figure in society, while the narrator represents women who are taken advantage of and decide to put up a fight. A secondary character, Nellie Kane, is minimally important but adds to the severity of Meyer’s actions, as he is the narrator’s husband whom Meyer knows is not around to protect
Lonely, he stumbles to the back of the narrator’s home and yells until she comes outside. We then hear the chorus, which consists of the narrator claiming that Meyer’s ghost will wear rattling chains, implying either that he is going to hell or that he will forever be tormented in the afterlife. Meyer then asks the narrator where her husband has gone and if he has left her alone, to which she replies that he has indeed left on business. Meyer then grabs her by the hair and pins her hands above her head as he lay across her dress, implying that he is attempting to rape her. The narrator begins to pray and finds the bottle of whiskey that Meyer had dropped, slicing his neck open as he bleeds all over her. Welch provides a fantastic crescendo into a climax, which includes a conflict and resolution in order to keep the audience