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Popular Culture Review
didn’t take long to realize that Moore was not just being playful in his
description of one of his characters. Instead, he was bringing to the forefront a
character trait he had been using, quite successfully, in a number of his books.
Furthermore, it’s a trait which has actually been around for some time, but no
one had thought to name before Moore came along. Now that it has been named,
though, you will see that it has existed for some time and we can now make use
of Moore’s definitions in our own critical analysis.
Before we get too far off track, looking into the mind of the Beta Male and
how Moore is so successful at creating him in his fiction, we should start by
examining the characteristics of the Alpha Male, so we can recognize him while
walking through the deli section of the grocery store. In fact, we should look at
character creation in general. For an author, filling a particular character role is
one of the first determinations which needs to be made. Frederick Buechner, as
quoted in Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, sees it this way:
You avoid forcing your characters to march too steadily to the
drumbeat of your artistic purpose. You have some measure of
real freedom for your characters to be themselves. And if
minor characters show an inclination to become major
characters, as they’re apt to do, you at least give them a shot at
it, because in the world of fiction it may take many pages
before you find out who the major characters really are, just as
in the real world it may take you many years to find out that
the stranger you talked to once for half an hour in the railroad
station may have done more to point you to where your true
homeland lies than your priest or your best friend or even your
psychiatrist (Lamott 53).
For Moore, though, this principle works to his advantage. See, the Alpha
Male is Darwinian evolution in action. He is the biggest, strongest, fastest, best
looking guy in the cave. He is the reason natural selection was invented. He’s
going to be the guy who kills the mammoth, outruns the fire, and nabs the best
looking girl, all of which ensures his genes, these superior chromosomes, will
cany on into the future. So where does that leave the Beta Male? Moore himself
explains this in his internet blog:
There’s a good chance that in the caveman community, that
the Beta Male never got the hot, smart, Darryl Hannah cave
woman, but there’s an even better chance that he got everyone
else. The beta male is seldom the strongest or the fastest, but
because he can anticipate danger, he far outnumbers his alpha
male competitors. Rather than strength, size, or charisma, the
Beta Male adapted to adversity by developing a massive
imagination. (Moore)