Depiction of Character Through Style in Joyce Cary's'
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
DEPICTION OF CHARACTER THROUGH STYLE IN JOYCE CARY'S POLITICAL TRILOGY by JACK ERNEST MERCER B.A., University of British Columbia, 1940 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of English We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA October, 1962 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be alkwed without my written permission. Department of ENGLISH The University of British Columbia, Vancouver 8, Canada. Date OCTOBER, 1962. i ABSTRACT This study discusses three of Cary's first per• son novels—Prisoner of Grace, Except the Lord, and Not Honour More published from 1952 to 1954 and usually termed the Political Trilogy—and examines in particular the craft with which he gave depth to his characterization by providing each narrator with a unique personal style. The analysis of the style in each of the three novels follows a pattern. First the syntactical structure, pace and tone, and choice of words are examined as indicative of the nar• rator's character. Next the metaphorical pattern is in• vestigated to assess the narrator's interests, motives, de• sires or anxieties. The allusions, references and quota• tions are identified and analyzed. This reveals the intel• lectual and cultural background of each character, and shows how much each depends upon outside authority to support his judgments. The narrative style and the use of descriptive setting are then examined to assess the narrator's dramatic qualities and visual acuity. The quality and use of humour are analyzed to determine the general attitude of the char• acter to the world outside himself. And, because each protagonist gives his own view of his counterparts through ii his style and develops and rationalizes that view, these complex interrelations are also investigated. The application of this method to Prisoner of Grace results in bringing out the many facets of character of a narrator, Nina Latter. Her involuted style with its continual use of brackets reveals a mind in which there is clash of ideas and a conflict of emotions, the essential dualism of a personality torn between loyalty to her first husband, Chester Nimmo the politician, and love of James Latter, her lover and second husband. This use of paren• theses also reveals a mind that qualifies judgments and per• ceives diverse viewpoints. Nina's sources of metaphor-- natural phenomena, children's entertainments, war and human illness—reveals her feminine qualities as woman and mother, and by association they expose deep-rooted conflicts, claus• trophobic oppressions and irrational fears. Her allusions and references show a keen appreciation of culture, while her wide range of humour enriches and humanizes her char• acter and shows her strong"capacity for happiness. In Except the Lord, Chester Nimmo's memoir of his early life, the narrator's pomposity of diction, his use of evocative expressions and rhetorical devices show his power as a spellbinder, his tendencies towards the demagogue. However, Nimmo's frequent use of a simpler style enriched by iii rural and biblical expressions reveals sincerity and awareness of human suffering. His choice of subjects for metaphor—death, buildings, oriental splendours, nature— shows preoccupation with death, search for security and foundations of faith, romantic tendencies and interest in the transcendental. His selection of allusions and quota• tions from the great exponents of nineteenth-century liber• alism reveals his essential idealism and humanitarianism. The interpolation of philosophic comment in the narrative expresses NimmoTs deep moral concern and his attempt to anal• yze his own motives for political action as well as to ex• pose general evils in society. In Not Honour More.James Latter's apologia for his "execution" of Nina, the narrator's elliptical, telegraph ic style, with its sardonic invective and ironical hyperbole, expresses the violence and paranoic fanaticism of his nature. His choice of• abstract words reveals his adherence to moral absolutes and traditional loyalties. His subjects for meta• phor—animals, visceral functions, sport—suggest a man of action. Latter's selection of quotations and allusions shows dependence upon authority and reveals prejudice of viewpoint. His occasional use of a simple, even sentimental style shows a warmth and loyalty towards his friends, while his aware• ness of humour in himself as well as in others also adds to this milder side of his nature. iv A trifocal view of the three novels of the Political Trilogy reveals similarities as well as differ• ences in the styles of the three narrators, suggesting certain affinities between them as well as contrasts in their natures. The multi-focus on the characters allows each to be seen "in the round" making possible a more ob• jective evaluation. While each narrator reveals subjective opinion through his style, the trifocal view distills the objective truths related to Cary's own ideas about man and the universe. V TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I Introduction 1 II Prisoner of Grace 17 III Except the Lord 75 IV Not Honour More 125 V Conclusion 178 Footnotes 192 Bibliography 201 THE DEPICTION OF CHARACTER THROUGH STYLE IN JOYCE CARY'S' POLITICAL TRILOGY Chapter I Introduction Joyce Cary published fifteen novels from Aissa Saved, his first, in 1932, to The Captive and the Free, edited post• humously in 1959; but amongst these, his major work—and that upon which his place in English Literature will no doubt chiefly depend—was his production of two trilogies. The completion of his First Trilogy—Herself Surprised (1941), To Be a Pilgrim (1942) and The Horse's Mouth (1944)—brought to Cary long delayed popular acclaim and serious critical reviews. In spite of the success of these navels, Cary aban• doned the trilogy form in order to write two single chronicles: 2 The Moonlight (1946) and A Fearful Joy (1949), both of which pictured a wide historical period through a study of characters living during the era. Then Cary returned to his multidimensional approach to produce his last major work, usually called the Political Trilogy, comprising Prisoner of Grace (1952), Except the Lord (1953), and Not Honour More (1954). This trilogy is the special concern of this study. Each of the novels of the Political Trilogy is narrated in the first person by a different character and the three books are united by common characters and events. In the first novel, Prisoner of Grace, Nina Latter views the world of twentieth-century British Liberalism through the political life of her first husband, Chester Nimmo; in the second novel, Except the Lord, Nimmo tells the story of his own early life to reveal the religious roots of his political liberalism; and in the third novel, Not Honour More, James Latter, Nina's lover and second husband, violent ly attacks both Nimmo and political corruption on the public and private levels. Cary's own statement as to why he chose politics for the subject of his second trilogy, is quoted by Bernard Kalb in the Saturday Review. Cary points out that he had already written about "art" (in the Horse's Mouth), "business" (in A Fearful Joy) and "the woman's life" (in The Moonlight). All these, he explains, had dealt with his special world, the "world of the free imagination, the peren- 3 nial creation." The Political Trilogy, he states: shows this world in politics; a world where the free individual soul, with his special prob• lems his special ambitions, is always in con• flict; an everlasting cold war, civilized only by conscience, by social taboos, and by the law; a world dominated, like that of art and business by the man of imagination.! And for his "man of imagination" to be placed in this world of politics, Cary chose the enigmatic, flexible Chester Nimmo, who dominates not only his own narrative, but also the other two novels of the trilogy. Before examining in detail the novels of the Political Trilogy, one must analyze Cary's use of the tri• logy form in order to reveal how it answered his special need toidif f erentiate character—in which task style is an important instrument. Such an examination will also allow an assessment of his unique contributions to this literary technique. Very early, Cary came to realize that his primary interest and his greatest power lay in the creation of character. And he also became aware that a character can only be shown in depth when he is allowed to play a major role in the novel. Therefore, it seemed logical that the number of characters in a novel must be strictly limited. Cary's ignoring of this principle in his chronicle, Castle Corner, and A Fearful Joy, explains their fundamental weak- 4 ness. George Woodcock comments upon this when he says: Castle Corner collapses like the tower of Babel from the weight of the crowd of Heaven defiers. There are too many positive and clam• ourous characters demanding our attention and what might have been grandeur ends in confusion. The chronicles were also weakened by the fact that they attempted to cover too many events in time, too many aspects of too many problems. Cary in Art and leality states the danger of losing power by having too wide a screen: "...the more comprehensive a novel in scope, in width of scene," he says, "the more it loses in power and significance."-^ Therefore Cary succeeded better in the trilogies, because the first person viewpoint limited the scope of the novel and presented narrators with psychological depth.