Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Least Favorite Character?
Although I have mentioned that I do not have any favorites among the characters, I can definitely say that I have a least favorite persona, Lucrezia. I am not sure exactly why, but from the first time that we were let in upon her thoughts, I found myself just waiting for her segment to be over. Unlike the thoughts of all the other characters, there seemed to be no depth to her mind. It seemed as though she had a very stiff mind that only saw things through one perspective, incapable of any other perception. She seemed to be in eternal desperateness and always overly conscious of attention. There was no sense of her even trying to understand Septimus or trying to accommodate her mind to his. In fact, I would go as far as to say that her tone of voice seemed a bit whinny at times. The only time that I actually felt more sincere to her was right after Septimus's death, but I do not attribute so much to her narrative as just to the situation. But on the overall, I felt little appreciation for Lucrezia as a character, and I think that I would have most likely enjoyed the book more if her character was more in tone with the other characters. Yes, Clarissa and Septimus can be seen as the extremes of this spectrum of this mental complexity, but all of the other characters display at least some degree of it as well. But Lucrezia's character is really out of synch with everyone else as she is so superficial and almost self-centered in a way about how she perceives everything around her that it roughens up the flow of the book. As a matter of fact, the blandness of Lucrezia's perspective really made her a really unmemorable character for me, and I do not remember much of what she had said or done. But on the other hand, maybe Lucrazie is set to be the stabilizer of the complexities of Clarissa and Septimus's minds. With out her, we would not be able to so easily see the extent of the mental depth that dominates the narrative. She alone points out all the other characters. Or, do they all stick her out? It now becomes a question of what is normal and what is not.
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I felt that Lucrezia was an interesting voice to read. I feel it's important to understand Lucrezia's point of view throughout this entire story to understand her as a character. She fully uprooted her life so that she could be with Septimus, and then his mental instability sets in, leaving Lucrezia in a terribly awkward position. She doesn't understand what is wrong with him, all she knows is that she wants life to be how it used to be: when she was in love and living amongst her family and friends in her beautiful home country. Now, she is isolated, confused, and desperate to hang on to the only true happiness she has left, that being the memory of the husband she used to have. We, as the modern readers, come from the constant perspective of Septimus being severely mentally scarred by his experiences during the war, but Rezia must slowly come to grips with this fact. Her development as a character was arguably one of the best arcs in the story. Overall I would peg her as my third favorite character to read (Septimus being the first and Peter the second). If you ask me, the prize for worst character goes to Lady Bruton, who receives less actual inspection than any other character.
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