BRIAN MOORE'S SPECIAL CACHET : A STUDY IN CHARACTERIZATION by Irene Brenda Jeffery B.A., University of British Columbia , 1960 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 May, 1972' 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 allowed without my written permission. Department The University of British Columbia Vancouver 8, Canada Date ^["j V) 191%. ABSTRACT The purpose of this study, is to establish the thesis that Brian Moore's predominant concern with the characterization of his individual protagonists influences both the form and content of his first seven novels. Chapters I and II discuss the effect of Moore's interest in character on the structural elements of plot and point of view. Chapter I describes the typical Moore plot which traces the gradual transformation of the character of the protagonist as the result of a series of disillusioning events which climax in a moment of revised self-recognition. Thus, plot is operative in determining character. The most striking aspect of Moore's narrative technique, discussed in Chapter II, is his accomplished mixing of first and third-person narration. As a consequence, Moore is able to present the protagonist with the objectivity of third-person narration at the same lime as he advances the protagonist's subjective view in the first-person. In all Moore's novels, however, the emphas is on the protagonist's view ensures that his personality dominates the narrative. Chapters III and IV deal with the elaborate patterns of language and image which illuminate Moore's novels. Chapter III links the unique linguistic quality of each novel to ife source in the language, character, and situation of the protagonist, while Chapter IV describes the patterns of imagery which reveal the protagonist's vision of himself and of his world. In the latter chapter, the several methods by which Moore depicts the physical and psychological qualities of his characters are discussed as well as his special visualization of each novel in its entirety. Both chapters argue that Moore's considerable skills in manipulating language and image find a focus in the central .character of each novel. Chapter V deals with the underlying ideas in Moore's fiction and, in particular, with the search for identity which is fundamental to all seven novels. Like Moore's protagonists, who are themselves ordinary human.beings, Moore's themes are founded in common human experience. And so, the discussion of thematic content which concludes this study illustrates yet another area in which Moore's concern with the portrayal of character influences his fiction. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Introduction i Chapter I, Plot.''-.......... 1 Chapter II, Point of View . ....... .22 Chapter III, Language 49 Chapter IV, Imagery 90 Chapter V, Thematic Development . 139 Conclusion 157 Bibliography 159 Appendix A: The Revolution Script . 161 INTRODUCTION Like many novelists before him, Brian Moore is primarily concerned with the depiction of character. The very titles of several Moore novels - Tudith Hearne, The Luck of Ginger Coffey, I am Mary Dunne, and Fergus - point to his overriding interest in people and, especially, in one person who is the novel's subject. All Moore's novels illustrate how the character of the protagonist is altered by the events which he initiates. The surprising feature of this preoccupation with a single character is that Moore's pro• tagonists are typically unimportant people. The only characters who verge on the extraordinary, Brendan Tierney and Fergus Fadden, are by no means famous writers. Therefore, the truth or the moral which a Moore novel im• parts is a realistic truth about ordinary human beings. As Christopher Ricks notes, "The singular strength of Brian Moore's novels is manifest in their abolishing brow-distinction."* Brian Moore's novels are short (he has pointed out that he intends 2 his novels to be read in an evening) , brilliant exercises in characterization. He effectively brings to life an ordinary person who totally engages the reader's sympathies. It is because Moore's characters are so essential to his art and so successfully realized that his skills in characterization deserve to be examined. This thesis will discuss how the plot, the narrative point of view, the diction, the imagery, and the themes are all instrumental in the realization of Moore's protagonists. Although Brian Moore is a contemporary novelist, his novels are not remarkably modern in technique. Moore's dominating interest in creat• ing characters precludes, for example, such experimentation as the French - ii - anti-novelists have undertaken. In'f'act, it is obviously Moore's success in portraying character which exonerates him from Iris Murdoch's frequently echoed criticism of the modern novel in general: The 19th century novel (I use these terms ^oldly and roughly: of course there were exceptions) was not concerned with "the human condition," it was concerned with real various individuals struggling in society. The 20th century novel is usually either crystalline or journalistic; that is, it is either a small quasi-allegorical object portraying the human condition and not containing "characters" in the 19th century sense, or else it is a large shapeless quasi-documentary object, the degenerate descendant of the 19th century novel, telling, with pale conventional characters, some straightforward story enlivened with empirical fact, j "The real various individuals" who people Moore's fiction ensure that Iris Murdoch's "crystalline" and "journalistic" labels cannot be applied to his novels which belong, as Christopher Ricks maintains, "without any embarrassment in the tradition that the Victorians magnificently 4 • established." A consideration of Moore's fictional techniques reveals in some instances, particularly in his handling of plot and point of view, a develop- mentaltrend from one novel to the next, while his treatment of diction, imagery, and the underlying themes of each novel often shows interesting parallels between novels. In order to. illustrate both the developments and the similarities it is preferable to discuss Moore's methods of character• ization with examples from all the novels rather than to discuss the techniques of each novel in relation to that novel alone. Accordingly, the - iii - chapters of this thesis will be devoted to Moore's techniques beginning with his formulation of plot. 1 Christopher Ricks, "The Simple Excellence of Brian Moore," New Statesman, 71 (Feb. 18, 1966), p. 227. 2 Hallvard Dahlie, "Interviews Brian Moore, " The Tamarack Review, 50 (Winter, 1968), p.23. .3 Iris Murdoch, "Against Dryness , " Encounter (January, 1961), p.18 4 Christopher Ricks, "The Simple Excellence of Brian Moore," p.227. CHAPTER I PLOT Brian Moore has an old-fashioned penchant for telling a good story. His novels have the prime requisite for a good story - a plot - which rises to an important and revealing climax near the end of each novel. In Moore's novels, the plot centres on one character, and the climactic moment brings to this character a revelation about himself of such magnitude that the character's life must be different from that moment on. That is, Moore's plots are based on the notion of personal change which is the result of events affecting the protagonists. In the early novels, these events bring about a gradual stripping away of the central characters's illusions until the climax which is usually the moment of greatest disillusion. In the later novels, the protagonists also forfeit their illusions, but the climax is not always totally disillusioning. In either case, it is clear that the character of the protagonist has altered to some significant extent because of the events he has experienced. Consequently, in Moore's novels, the plot itself is an instrument of characterization, not only because actions reveal character, but principally because the events of the novel shape and change the character of the protagonist. In short, Moore's concern with character influences the very structure of his novels. Brian Moore brought this type of plot to perfection in his first novel, Judith Hearne He has said that this novel describes loss of faith for an 2 ordinary person, and certainly, at the climactic moment, Judith Hearne's illusions about religion are destroyed. This climax is rendered even more pathetic because previous to this moment all Miss Hearne's other hopes - 2 for the future have also been crushed, one by one. The events of Judith Hearne, then, comprise a series of ever-increasing disillusions which lead to a total breakdown for the unfortunate protagonist. The following detailed examination of this plot will reveal the intricate pattern of development which Moore follows in all his subsequent novels. At the outset of the novel Judith Hearne is endeavouring to begin a new life in another admittedly shoddy boarding house. Her new "digs" appear especially promising because of James Madden, an eligible man who does not, as all other males before him, reject her at their first meeting. In fact, he even invites her out in the evening and accompanies her to mass on Sunday. Her new boarding house also provides her with anecdotes to entertain her friends, the O'Neills, for Judith Hearne things that a single girlhas to have a store of entertaining stories about other people, like new new landlady, Mrs.