So far in my research I have found many interesting things about Gein that are going to be helpful to my paper and others that won’t really help me out in my paper. At this point in my research I have found some things that are going to help me answer my question of why he kept certain things as souvenirs. The first thing I did in my research was looked for a source with enough background information for me to get a feel for Gein’s life and the crimes he committed, I read many sources until I found one that I felt was good enough to use. I then found an article about a women who claimed to have dated Gein for twenty years, which I new was false because his mother forbidden him to dating. I then found a source that gave me information on his parents childhood as well as his. Through that source I have discovered that Gein’s mother wanted a baby girl badly and when she had Ed she vowed he would not grow up to be like other men. Gein was raised with the mentality that his mother was  a saint and she could do no harm. The unhealthy relationship that Gein had with his mother plays a huge role in his mental health. Gein was practically in love with his mother and after he died he lost her, but he found ways to get “parts” of her back. Gein would do anything to be close with his mother after she was dead. Gein dug up the graves of women who reminded him of his mother and kept parts of them as a constant reminder of the female body and of his mother. Gein’s ultimate trophy was the body suit he made of different females, in which he would wear at night and dance in the moonlight. The ultimate reminder of his mother would be to have a sex change, because then he could be just like his mother, but if Gein couldn’t have the sex change he wanted that suit did just enough for him.

Again I have gone in a different direction than planned for this source but I think this source has so far been very beneficial for me. For my third source I read a secondary source, the first few chapters of the book Deviant by Harold Schechter. This book covers everything on Ed Gein, from his parents childhood, to his murders, to his trail and his death. So far I have only read chapters 2-6 but have gotten answers for some questions I have had. Before reading these chapters I was curious on his parents childhood and if that had an effect on the upbringing of their children. This book was copywrited in 1989 which was after the death of Gein but is a great source on his life. [Edit] This source has formed rhetorical distance with its readers by using an impersonal approach and a third person narrative. By doing so the rhetor has created an informational tone to Gein’s life rather than telling it like a story.

Chapter two starts out talking about the Gein family seemed to be singled out for tragedy. George Gein’s childhood (Ed’s father) is the first thing talked about. George was orphaned at the age of three when his parents and older sister went to town and were caught in a flash flood and drowned. George moved in with his grandparents and never seemed important to anyone. After finishing elementary school George floated around from job to job and eventually ended up becoming quite the drinker. Augusta came from a large family that was nowhere near perfect. Stern, disciplined, domineering and inflexibility were things Augusta grew up with due to her fathers behavior issues, and the children were often beat for misbehaving. Augusta’s family was very religious which carried into her adult years. George and Augusta met at a young age and as different as they were they seemed to hit it off. Although they hit it off at first their marriage would become a nightmare. Augusta clearly learned to take after her father and her husband could never seem to be good enough, he would always be a worthless good for nothing man. George’s alcoholism became worse due to the unhealthy marriage with Augusta which led to him coming home highly intoxicated and he would lash out and hit Augusta. Augusta felt that a child would comfort her because the marriage was not good. As religious as she was the thought of sex with this man revolted her but she wanted a child.

Henry was born in 1902 and would live a hard life of isolation until his death forty years later. Although Augusta loved Henry something still did not seem right in her life, she decided she wanted another child in hope that she would have a daughter, after all having a girl would allow her to bond better. So Augusta allowed her husband to commit that foul deed upon her one more time and she prayed every night for a baby girl. On August 27, 1906 Augusta brought another baby boy into this world, she was devastated.  But she was stronger than that, she would not give into this despair, instead she vowed that this boy would not turn out to be a sweating, foul-mouthed creature like the rest of the men in this world, Eddie would be different. She was right Eddie would be different than the rest of the kids in his school, his mother forbidden him to make any kind of friends because there was always something wrong with the other kids family. In school Eddie was often the target of being teased because of a skin growth he had beneath his eye, being picked on made Eddie cry, which led to more teasing because he cried like a girl. Augusta would see to it that her children would never have anything to do with women, for they were foul creatures that were evil and would only do harm to her boys. She gave them a daily bible lesson and enforced a strong set of rules. In Eddie’s eyes his mother was nothing but pure goodness, his father on the other hand according to Augusta was a worthless, good for nothing alcoholic who couldn’t keep a job. These chapters tell of two memories Ed has of his mother when he was younger that stuck in his mind for the remainder of his life. One of those two was seeing his mother slaughter a pig hanging by its hind legs in the windowless wooden building behind the store that was forbidden to enter.  From that moment on he knew he would never forget the sight of the split open pig with a pile of guts and blood hanging below.

I think this source helped me a lot in my research project, although I have not finished the book I feel I have already learned things that have helped answer some of my questions. From these chapters I am taking away some useful information, I find it interesting that even as a child Ed showed girlish characteristics which I blame his mother for. Augusta wanted a daughter so bad that I think he knew she would be happier if he acted like a girl. Because he was emotional as a child I think it effected his phycology and that’s why he was so fascinated with the female body. I have also learned that because Ed was so infatuated with his mother he did things to try to be like her. In some way I believe that finding Bernice Worden’s decapitated body hanging from his barn cut open and gutted relates back to his memory of seeing his mother slaughtering that pig. I do plan on reading more in this book in hopes of finding out more about him psychologically as well as more about his arrest and trial. I think that this source will be really helpful in understanding why he decided to keep certain body parts of the female body.

Work Cited

Schechter, Harold. Deviant: the shocking true story of Ed Gein, the original ‘psycho’. New York: Pocket Books, 1989. p. 9-31. Print.

The second source I will be using is from the Stevens Point Daily Journal on November 20, 1957, three days after Gein’s arrest. This source is kairotic because it was printed right after Ed Gein was caught for murdering Bernice Warden. I’m choosing to use this article titled, “Woman Tells Tales of Dating Gein”  because I find it inaccurate and contradicts my other sources. This source was written for the people in the town of Stevens Point but also people interested in the Ed Gein case and was to inform them of what this woman was saying about her relationship with Gein.

According to this article Adeline Watkins claimed to have dated Ed Gein for twenty years. She stated that Ed was “so nice about doing things I wanted to do, that sometimes I felt I was taking advantage of him.” In this article she also claims that Gein had proposed to her but she turned him down because she didn’t believe she could live up to his expectations. Watkins mother also claimed that he was a sweet young man who always had her daughter home on time. In  my opinion I think this woman made this up. I have read many biographies on Gein and not one mentioned him dating, in fact most stated that he never dated a woman. Watkins claims their last date was in February of 1955, which if that was true would mean they started their relationship in 1935, ten years before Geins mother passed away. Gein did everything in his power to live up to his mothers expectations and wouldn’t do anything to go against her. Gein’s mother had forbidden her sons to have any sort of relationship with women for they were impure and were all prostitutes. Gein was so in love with his mother that it would have nearly been impossible for him to have such feelings for another woman. When Ed’s brother Henry was alive he talked about moving out because he had feelings for a woman, which infuriated Ed because it went against what their mother had taught them. Gein killed two women that resembled his mother which shows how infatuated he was with his mother, again making this article hard to believe.

This source doesn’t really help answer my question but I found it interesting that a woman would claim to have dated such a disturbed man. I think this source also goes to show that even back in the fifties people wanted attention and would say just about anything to get a share of the lime light. By refuting this article it will back up my previous statements that Gein had an unhealthy obsession with his mother. From here I do not find it important to continue my research about this relationship with Adeline Watkins, instead I am going to peruse the idea of what could have led him to commit these crimes.

Work Cited:

“Woman Tells of Dates She Had with Gein.” Stevens Point Daily Journal 20 Nov. 1957: 1. Print.