“Every story is a travel story—a spatial practice” producing geographies of action."[1] In this story the geographies of action are the spaces in which the crime unfolds. A disagreement between Emile Tuyes and Joe Geier started in a French Quarter saloon and moved into the street. Geier insulted Tuyes several times until Tuyes shot Geier.
An analysis of the public spaces of this crime tale and the placement of the insults inside these spaces reveal the local and national stories described above. The geography of the neighborhood (the French Quarter), the geography of built spaces (the saloon and the street), and the geography of the two men’s bodies are the story's terrains. These terrains had meaning and represented a content of knowledge to those inhabiting the spaces.[2] A spatial analysis also uncovers a possible motive for the crime.
The spatial re-creation of the French Quarter neighborhood and its built environment at the turn of the century is supported with demographic and literary analyses, contemporary maps, and city directories. A knowledge of the social and cultural changes shows how the two men understood those spaces. A textual analysis of the four insults relies on a close readings of newspaper reports and trial documents, an understanding of turn-of-the-century shifts in the concept of manhood, and how the idealized body of manhood was defined.
[1] Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 115 -116.
[2] Tim Cresswell, Place: An Introduction. Cresswell describes place as a “way of understanding the world.” 18.