The Stonemason by Cormac McCarthy - Essay Example

The Stonemason by Cormac McCarthy is a play comprised of five Acts. McCarthy presents the Telfair family which is engulfed by many tribulations in three years period. The story revolves around Ben Telfair, aged 32, a stonemason, who applies monologue in providing comprehensive and often complicated remarks on the activities on stage and behind the stage. McCarthy presents Ben Telfair’s family as a strong-willed, industrious, and middle-class family of African descent residing in Louisville, Kentucky in the 1970s (Arnold 101-103).

The Telfairs have a stonemasonry business, which has existed for many generations. Ben decides to drop his education to assume the business from his grandfather, who upholds true stonemasonry and is helped by the community. Ben and his grandfather are extremely close out of love, and they later separate because of the family business. This paper shall Sketch Ben Telfair's character, and discuss its positive and negative qualities (Arnold 101-103).

It is exceedingly strange that even though McCarthy identifies the Telfairs’ as a “black family”, the play does not reference any social issues; therefore, race is not significant at all in the play. Ben deserts his university education to carry on with the family custom of stonemasonry. In this context, McCarthy exposes the strong-willed character of Telfair, in fighting poverty. As depicted in the opening of the play, Telfair is a middle-class family, and therefore, unless Ben does something to uplift the standards of the family, they may be no developments within the family.

On the other hand, the Telfairs are not insightful, because they do not see any value in education and that is the reason Ben decides to drop education to go on with stonemasonry since that is the tradition of the Telfairs. In addition, Ben has a strong tie with his aging grandfather, and he respects him very much. Pawpaw, the grandfather, upholds the values of sincerity, integrity, and industriousness. Ben is determined to uphold the traditional values of the family and in this context, we realize the reason why he drops education is to carry on with the traditions of the family. The family believes in physical work, and unless one carries on with stonemasonry the physical one will be going against the old-fashioned values of the family. For this reason, it does not matter whether the values upheld are fruitful or not, but the objective is to uphold them (Arnold 112).

The wife of Ben, Maven, has a goal to achieve. She is not only beautiful and trustworthy, but she desires to become a lawyer. McCarthy introduces Ben’s Mama as a conventional mother who is compassionate and has a caring attitude. She believes it is her overall role and responsibility to handle everyone’s problems in the family regardless of size or age. Even though she seems concerned, this is a very weary character in the Telfair family. When one assumes responsibility for others, then some people might fail to learn to take care of themselves and they may never be accountable for their deeds.

In a way, Mama portrays a mothering feature, which puts the family at high risk. Ben is the protagonist in the play, and the Telfairs contribute to the dramatic incidences evidenced in the play. Ben’s eldest sister Carlota, after being overwhelmed by her broken marriage, neglects her parental responsibility and her son indulges in delinquent behaviors and drugs and disappears from home. Even though the neglecting mother contributed to the loss of her son, I believe, Mama’s character is contributive. She always tried as much as she could to fix everybody’s problems, and she did this by taking accountability for mistakes committed and trying to solve them herself (Arnold 110).

In addition, her compassionate character leads to her failed marriage with Carlotta. Mama thought, taking care of both good and bad was the best way to bring forth to uphold the values of value, but to an extent, she was ruining their lives. Eventually, the son dies after three years from drug addiction, since there was no one to fix his drug problem. He felt ashamed to face the reality and stop the menace, since he was never taught to be accountable for his own mistakes, and could, therefore, not face the reality, that death is the ultimate thing. Read More