The silent sentinel: the head in the doorway

texture · YDAU

• When: YDAU (recurs; the sustained instance is scene 179, 20 Nov)
• What: A recurring motif of Wayne's affectless presence: he opens Hal's ajar door, puts "just his head in," stays wordless "for a while," then his head "smoothly withdrew" (scene 110); later, lying on the floor, Hal feels Wayne's head in the doorway again — "There was none of the gathering tension of a person deciding whether or not to speak." Hal's summary of the relationship: "John Wayne and I never had much to say to one another. There wasn't even hostility between us." The doorway-head is the book's compressed emblem of Wayne as watcher — wordless, weightless, appearing and withdrawing (cf. the masked grave-watch, event 21).