I've noticed in most of the stories we've read, the male characters are much more complex and "flawed" than a typical 19th century male character. From many of the books I've read, the descriptions of males are often emphasizing their handsome looks, talents, and strengths, whereas amongst the three novels we've read so far, the male characters all have these issues. Septimus and Peter in Mrs. Dalloway are flawed in the sense they are outcasts of society, with one being a shell-shocked war veteran who is slowly becoming mad, and another who was kicked out of Cambridge and is a reckless boy at heart. In Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, we see Jake, an emasculated war veteran who internalizes his feelings towards the woman he can never be with, and possibly harbors homophobic and racist sentiments. And while we are discussing Metamorphosis currently, Gregor is a seemingly kind-hearted, and yet incredibly naive man who blindly works hard under a family who cruelly exploits him. A recurring theme I notice is the lack of character details from the author themselves. Rather, we are provided with facts, such as actions the characters do, and from there, we can interpret who they are as people. And upon closer examination, we often realize the characters are deeply troubled. They aren't perfect, knight-in-shining-armor sort of characters, rather, more realistic people who are much more in touch with the darker aspects of humanity. Perhaps this is where the effects of the wars of the 20th century come into play within literature. The experience of those dark times of the era seeped into the literature, creating a large literary movement which shifted the typical, romanticized masculine ideals into something much darker.
In the initial stages of the story, I wasn't quite sure as to how I would get a good grasp of Clarissa Dalloway, since this narrator is so unique. The narrator doesn't remain with Clarissa, and has already established its ability to travel within the deep minds of multiple characters. From what we saw of Clarissa in the beginning, all I could really grasp was her bird-like qualities, and the fact that she had been sick for a while. Yet while reading last night's chapter on her encounter with Peter, it really pulled together a stronger image of her, and I could finally see at how Woolf focuses on her as a person. On page 40, Peter says, "Here she is mending her dress; mending her dress as usual, he thought; here she's been sitting all the time I've been in India; mending her dress; playing about; going to parties..." The narrator is clearly revealing Peter's true thoughts on Clarissa in that moment. Yet I can't help but disagree with Peter. Clar...
I feel like most good authors let the readers get to know the characters, in the way we get to know people. They offer us objective facts and mannerisms, and it is through this that they communicate what kind of person these characters are. Perhaps the way we get to know them also contributes to their complexity - as we get to know them like we do real people, they may seem more real to us.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in that these characters seem very complex, especially in comparison with characters like Mr. Darcy (I have nothing against him, but I feel as if he can be defined in very certain "hero" terms). The war might have emphasized the darkness of the previous generation's "heroism" - these men go out to war and become heroes of the country, but they know of the scars that the war put onto them. I feel like people have definitely stopped glorifying everything, especially heroic service/death (as is emphasized for a knight-in-shining-armor trope). Gregor Samsa's tragic "heroism", for example, is also easy to interpret as weakness and idiocy.
I'm really intrigued by your connection to how the war would have lead to characters like this being written. I had also noticed the rare humanity and emotion in the male characters in the novels but I couldn't quite put my finger on what was different. I think that it's really interesting to think about how the after affects of the war would have impacted the writing and other art that came out at that time. It's also interesting to compare these characters to the other stereotypical male "hero" type that was popular of the time and even of today I would say. What I would be curious to know more about, though, is how the general public reacted to these books when they were published. The general public had also been through the war and suffered through similar experiences. Were they able to empathize and understand these characters that have been damaged by the war, or were they uncomfortable and criticizing of these characters?
ReplyDeleteI definitely feel that the war prompted a shift in characterization. If everyone saw all the "heroes" get killed going over the top, again and again, for 3 feet of cratered mud, without much improvement at the end, what is the point of the "hero"? Is the hero really a hero, if they never accomplished anything? If the French army, and its Cult of the Offensive, the epitome of pre-War masculinity, died for nothing, then what is that masculinity worth? Was it ever worth anything?
ReplyDeleteWith the illusion of the hero broken then, we start seeing characters like Septimus, a broken veteran, and Gregor, obsessed with duty and providing for his family, yet only a drain in the end.
I like the thought that these people come out of the public realizing that war was a hopeless kind of affair and that the heroes of the 19th century and older, the ones who should survive, don't make it very far. I remember from previous units that the Modernist style of books was deep into the idea that all are doomed, which definitely was influenced by the war.
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