1) This novel is filled with numerous passages swelling with poetic prose; each sentence seems to be an essential part of the big picture of the story. I found myself drawn most to the deep emotion of this literature, as most evidently portrayed with Patrick through Alice’s death. Patrick finds himself at one point in the Garden of the Blind after blowing up the Muskoka Hotel. Elizabeth, a blind woman he meets in the garden sits and listens to his every motion in order to capture and empathize with his pain. “He is unable to talk, even if all he said would be hidden within her blindness. Alice Gull, he could say, who once pushed her hands up against the slope of a ceiling and spoke of a grand cause, who leapt like a live puppet into his arms, who died later on a bloody pavement, ruined in his arms” (171). These few lines painted a picture in my mind of his love for Alice and the strain it has taken on him. He is so stricken that he knows even the blind will sense his loss. He mourns not only over Alice though, but over the cause that seems to have died with her. Throughout the story she is drawn to the plight of the foreign worker, a plight like the foundation of a sloped ceiling, flawed from the beginning. With all the force in the world, there is no hope of fully straightening it. He refers to her as a live puppet in his arms, manipulated and loved only by him, yet found dead and ruined in his arms at the end of the novel. This wording is truly beautiful as it perfectly demonstrates just how brutal and heart wrenching it is to lose the one you love. Patrick doesn’t wish to lose any memory of Alice no matter how painful and he fears that even the blind might peer into his soul and take it all away.
2) The character I feel most connected to throughout the story is Clara. She is so peculiar it’s hard not to feel some sort of tie to her. She keeps the same persona throughout the story, remaining mysterious and disconnected from truly feeling anything. She constantly falls back on wanting to go back to Ambrose as she claims to Patrick that she will leave him for Ambrose “and [he] must never follow [her]” (72), as if she’s afraid she might love him in return. Her whole life is a game of men and money, a mere game with no true resolution. I believe pathos is an extremely key component of his character, but it’s not externally exposed until after she leaves Patrick in the hotel room and she goes down and sits “looking at Patrick’s river” (100). She is torn in two, in my opinion, not by Ambrose and Patrick but by an internal barrier that she is never able to overcome until she calls Patrick at the end of the book. It doesn’t really matter that there is an Ambrose, there didn’t need to be. She could have just left Patrick and never looked back, no strings attached. The fact that Ambrose does exist still leaves him as a fallback and not a true lover as she speaks of him. In the same way, Patrick is just a pawn. Unlike Ambrose he is more fragile and she realizes “she should have understood his breakable quality sooner” (98). I’m not saying that I have a multimillionaire that I use to leave men heartbroken and yearning, but I see weakness in her that I notice in myself as well. I do tend to put up walls in order to not truly feel things, and to not get hurt. It’s not nearly as intricate as her methods, but it definitely shares the same basis of manipulation.
3) Tragic flaw is imminent throughout the pages of this book as each main character strives for some form of relief from the life they lead. Alice is a key example of a character that is never able to escape the mysteries of her past. Flawed from the moment she flew off the bridge and into the arms of a man she never knew, flawed as she left the restaurant that day after being rescued and flawed as she fell in love with Cato. Her past a never ending row of lies she can never reveal, but to her daughter behind the lock of a valise filled with the trinkets of her past. Even to Patrick she claims “that [it’s] the past […and that he should] leave it alone” (141). It’s questionable why she’s so ashamed to tell people of her past, but understandable considering how far she’s strayed from where she once was. As if the bridge was a turning point for her into a life she wasn’t even sure she was ready for. This tragic flaw is minimal in its display and façade, but like Alice’s character there is more to it than meets the eye. She hides, even from the audience of the book, all of the years she had before making it to the bridge. This all leads to disaster in the end as through her life of mystery and scandal she grows further and further from the person she once was. She transforms into a more detailed shadow of Clara in a sense. At the end of the book when she is killed by the bomb, I find this as an outright protest against the life she’s led. Coming into this cruel world, means you must die at the hands of it. That is therefore the price Alice must pay for straying from the person she once was.
Our need for relationships...
-
We've been dancing around the idea that God has created human beings so
that we need love and meaningful relationships as much as we need air and
food and...
16 years ago
3 comments:
I also chose Clara as a character that I identify the most with. The river scene was also a scene that I pointed out in my post. I think the scene reveals a new side of Clara. The scene shows that she is an individual who struggles with some thing other than just men and money. Through out the novel, she was someone who would always follow after money, but the river scene showed that Clara is also an individual who is struggling with her identity. Also, I felt apthos for her because she follows after money and men. Her life is tied to Ambrose that she has no control over herself.
Hannah, I like your comments about Clara (and about Alice at the end of the last question, too). Clara is a very complex character and you raise some interesting questions about her. Perhaps she is the weakest character in the novel, really. She seems strong, and it seems like she chooses Ambrose over Patrick (and money over love), but maybe she is so controlled by Ambrose (or so weak herself that she could be controlled by anyone) that she has no autonomy, no freedom. Perhaps she is the most vulnerable and sad of all the characters in the book, in the end. Although, I suppose there is hope that, with Ambrose's death, she might develop some strength and sense of self. However, she calls Patrick after Ambrose's death, so maybe she will require him to provide her with a sense of identity in Ambrose's absence. Maybe she doesn't even understand she lacks autonomy and freedom. Hmm..
Although you asked me not to read your blog entries, I cannot resist. I am at a loss because I haven't read the novel, but your postings make me wish to. It sounds like an incredibly moving work. I admire the way you maneuver through the literary elements and see the beauty that the author presents. In fact, I have always loved hearing or reading your insights when you share them. If I can't have you in my classroom, it is nice to still share your insights this way.
Post a Comment