Aron enlists in the army

Aron Trask enlists in the United States Army in the winter of 1917–1918, lying about his age to escape the unbearable knowledge that his mother, Cathy Ames, is alive and running a brothel in Salinas. The act is not a patriotic impulse but a desperate flight from a shattered identity: after his brother Cal forces him to confront Cathy face to face, Aron's idealized world collapses, and he chooses the anonymity of military service as a form of self-annihilation. The enlistment severs him from his family, his fiancée Abra Bacon, and his own future, setting in motion the final tragedies of the novel.

Causes and Background

Aron's enlistment is the direct consequence of a single traumatic night. On Thanksgiving evening, Cal, smarting from their father Adam's rejection of a gift of fifteen thousand dollars, leads Aron to Kate's brothel and shows him their mother. Aron's reaction is immediate and violent: he screams at Cathy, then outside knocks Cal down and runs away, crying like a brokenhearted child. The revelation destroys the foundation of Aron's identity. He had always believed his mother was dead and buried somewhere in the East, a story Adam and Lee had maintained to protect him. Abra Bacon had told him a different version—that his mother had simply gone away—but Aron had refused to believe it, insisting, "My father says she's dead. He's not a liar." The confrontation with Cathy forces him to accept a truth he cannot integrate: his mother is not only alive but a whore, and his father has lied to him for seventeen years.

Aron's character made him uniquely vulnerable to this shock. Unlike his brother Cal, who had long suspected the truth and had already visited Kate, Aron had built his entire sense of self on a foundation of purity. He wanted to be a minister, had considered celibacy, and had created an idealized image of Abra that she herself found impossible to live up to. Lee had observed that Aron "couldn't stand to know about his mother because that's not how he wanted the story to go—and he wouldn't have any other story." The revelation does not merely sadden him; it unmakes his world.

What Happens

Aron does not return home after the confrontation. He disappears for two days, and when he resurfaces, it is not to face his family but to flee them entirely. He travels to San Jose and presents himself at the recruiting office there. Sergeant Axel Dane, opening the office at eight-thirty in the morning, finds a tired-looking kid waiting. Dane remarks to Corporal Kemp, "God! he's beautiful. I hope they take good care of him. Corporal, you may think that he wants to bear arms against the foe, but I think he's running away from love." Kemp replies, "You think some dame hurt him?" and then adds, "Maybe he's running away from himself."

Aron lies about his age, claiming to be eighteen. The sergeant accepts this without challenge, telling him, "Let's say you're eighteen. And we'll stick to it, shall we?" Aron fills out the enlistment form, and the transaction is complete. He does not tell his father or his brother. He does not take any clothes or the gold watch Adam had bought for him. He sends a single postcard to Abra, which reads: "Dear Abra. I don't feel clean. I'm not fit for you. Don't be sorry. I'm in the army. Don't go near my father. Good-by, Aron." To his father he sends a government postcard: "Dear Father, I'm in the army. I told them I was eighteen. I'll be all right. Don't worry about me. Aron."

Consequences and Aftermath

The enlistment has devastating consequences for everyone Aron leaves behind. Adam receives the postcard and suffers a stroke that leaves him partially paralyzed and unable to speak clearly. The news of Aron's death in combat—he is killed at the Battle of Cantigny on May 28, 1918—arrives by telegram months later, and Adam suffers a second, fatal stroke. Cal is consumed by guilt, believing he murdered his brother by showing him the truth. Abra, who had already begun to realize she did not truly love Aron, burns his letters and turns toward Cal.

Aron himself, as Cal had predicted, could not handle the knowledge. Cal had told his father, "I don't think he could stand it. He hasn't enough badness in him to stand it." The enlistment is Aron's attempt to erase himself, to become anonymous, to escape the story that had become unbearable. He dies in the first major American offensive of World War I, a death that is both heroic and meaningless, a final flight from a truth he could not face.