Water for Elephants

Class system changes within all communities. Within the overall community one can be low class, but inside a small tight-knit community the same person could be upper-middle class. Jacob Jankowski is one of these people. He was brought up into a middle class family during the depression. His is father an established Veterinarian with his own practice and Jacob is a student in an Ivy League University studying to follow in his father’s footsteps. It all came to a halt when his parents died in a car accident in his last year of college. His social class immediately went from middle class to out on the streets with nothing. That morning he had parents, a home and attended a great school. Now because of his father not keeping up with the mortgage and accepting beans and eggs as payments for the last two years, Jacob is left with nothing. He is now not even on a social class scale, he is a bum.
When Jacob results to leaving town and hitching a ride on a train with no idea it was the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. He fell upon Blackie, Bill, Grady and Camel. Camel set Jacob up with a job on the show the next morning. Jacob’s class went from a bum to a “First of May”, which they called new workers on the show. Jacob realized that he was placed in a social class right away from the department he was working in, by his first visit to the cookhouse. The “Kinkers” are the performers, which are the upper class group of the show and they are given special treatment. They are given red and white tablecloths, silverware, and vases of flowers and they also get to sleep in late. The table Jacob is told to sit at is a bare wooden table with just salt and pepper and there is a canvas divider between where he is sitting and where the Kinkers sit, which informs him that he is classified as low class.  The social ladder among this circus starts with the bosses, Uncle Al and August, which are at the top of the ladder. Next down the ladder are the performers, which are upper class because without them there would be no circus.  Then the animals follow the performers for the same reason they are a necessity.  At the bottom of the scale are the workingmen, which are called “Roustabouts” they do everything from cleaning out the stock cars, feeding and bathing animals, and putting up the big top.
Everyone is very serious about their specified departments, which defy their social class. Sleeping quarters, eating arrangements, and bathing are completely segregated. A perfect example is when August suggests that Jacob sleep with Kinko who is a performer. When they arrive in the ring stock car, Kinko’s reaction was that he is a performer and he will not sleep with a menagerie man who is low class workingman. Ironically, later they became good friends and Jacob got to call him by his real name, Walter.  They decided upon these sleeping arrangements after Uncle Al and August found out that Jacob is a veterinarian. This is their way of promoting him and giving him a step up on the circuses social ladder. Not only does Jacob get better sleeping quarters because of him being the shows new vet, the next time he goes to the cookhouse with August his eating arrangements have changed to.  As he walked over to the workingmen’s tables August said that, that was nonsense, he was the shows vet. Just from one conversation with Uncle Al his social class completely changed, he was suddenly bumped up to the nicely dressed tables where the upper class performers sit.  His bathing situation also changed.  August said we can hardly expect our vet to live like a workingman, and he arranged for him to get two buckets of water daily and new set of clothes from the Monday Man, which only the performers and bosses received. Jacob’s new social class changed everything, where he sleeps, eats and bathes.  Not only does he get all these new amenities he also got what he really wanted, to see Marlena more. He also was invited to enjoy extravagant dinners and liquor with August and Marlena up by the front of the train where the ride is a lot smoother and looks a lot nicer, which is a very rare honor. 

The workingmen of the show know they would never be offered anything of the sort. The working men are located further down to the back of the train, they call it the Flying Squadron where the environment, is nothing compared where the performers live.  The performers is very clean and has a nice paint job on the outside.  The Flying Squadron is very dingy and mangy from the outside and filthy on the inside.  The working men are even father down on the social ladder from the animals.  They get better treatment then the working men.  The reason behind it is that they can replace working men but not the animals. 

Even the shows payday is dependent upon social classes. The performers and bosses always get paid, with the exception of one time the performers did not, but it is the workingmen who do not get paid if Uncle Al decides to hold back. If you do not get paid four weeks in a row that is Al’s way of saying you better just stop showing up. If certain men were not needed and could not afford to pay them anymore Uncle Al would send Earl to “redlight” them, which means throw them off the train while its moving, which results in death. 

Jacob’s new class and responsibilities brought him good things and also bad. He all of the sudden had it all pile up on him. He had to deal with August’s schizophrenic personality, which had led to him taking his anger out on Rosie and Marlena. He also had to take care of Camel because of the disease he got from drinking jake. Lastly, being put up to act as mediator to August and Marlena for Uncle Al to get them back together so the circus would not fall apart. Plus he had already fallen in love with Marlena, made love to her and had his child on the way. The fight Jacob and August had because of August suspicion of adultery (socially unacceptable) between Jacob and Marlena, left all three of them black and blue. When Jacob brings Marlena to a hotel the man at the front counter judges them both when he sees their battered faces. Jacob asks for a room and he denied them even though the sign said vacancy. He also stated that they do not rent to unmarried couples. Just because they had bruises on their faces the clerk immediately placed them as low class and denied their room. As they were leaving a woman notices Marlena’s face from the circus poster and then the clerk changes his outlook when he realizes that she is a circus star, which places her in a higher class and says they might have a room after all. 

When Jacob is in his nineties his life is a lot different then it was when he was younger. His situation is similar to the lives the animals lived during the circus. He is told when it is time to eat, sleep, bathe and is contained in a space. The animals had the same treatment they were fed when food was available, bathe when water was available and were locked in their cages until show time. His favorite nurse, Rosemary plays his role when he was young. She helps bathe him, makes sure he is fed and makes sure he is in good health. Young Jacob as the circuses vet did all the same tasks to the animals. His social class has changed because now he is old and most believe that ninety three year old people are worthless. He is back to the bottom of the social ladder again after a long life, but he proved to everyone at the end of the story that he was still able to run away and go back to his so called home where he will keep going until he can’t go anymore.