Unwillingness to Change of Literary Characters - Essay Example

Unwillingness to Give Up Old Narratives and Internal Conflict in William Faulkner`s “A Rose for Emily” and Amy Tan`s “Two Kinds” Introduction People see and shape their lives with the help of narratives as they help to unite disjointed life events and transform them into coherent life experience and stories eventually. Narratives or their absence allows understanding what life people live behind their doors, what sorrows they hide and what feelings they feel. It is important to understand that adaptation to the changing reality is what makes a person really alive because stability is the most elusive thing in the world. It concerns literary characters as much as it concerns real people whom they resemble. But it happens often that the authors portray such heroes who want to preserve their personal stories untouched under the pressure of circumstances. When personages stick to some archaic and illusory world perception the only thing that awaits them is degradation and conflict with reality. Emily in Faulkner`s story as well as the mother in Tan`s story are bright examples of characters who refuse seeing the world as it and adapting to it accordingly. But the longer the truth is denied the more tragic the consequences turn out to be in both cases because denial of the truth is the least effective mechanism of reality acceptance. Body It is nevertheless difficult to choose which of two women – Emily or the mother of Jing-mei is trapped more seriously by unwillingness to change and denial because both women involve others into their deformed reality. But probably for Emily there is no relief and happy ending that is why her story is more tragic. Emily was raised under a supervision of a strict father who was obsessed with his daughter. He was exceptionally stubborn and unconquerable. The daughter seemed a faint shadow in white living in the house behind her father`s back. She was not used to living a normal life and looking after the house. She also could not choose a future husband or insist on her choice. As a result she remained single up to her thirties when he father died eventually. Obviously Emily inherited father`s nature and even denied father`s death for the three days which demonstrated her rigidity and devotion to everything that is familiar, traditional, and well understood. Though such unwillingness to accept reality was still acceptable in that moment it was probably the primary stage of madness: “We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will”. Later it turned out that Emily would rather commit a suicide than tried to solve her problems with people and the world. However, later a chance for the woman`s future happiness appeared with the visit of Homer Barron who was going to marry her. However, his premature death combined with Emily`s obsession and unwillingness to accept it lead to such a horrible consequences- the woman kept the body of her lover in her wedding bed for all her life. This strong internal conflict between what was real and what was imagined by Emily lead to her fast ageing. So Emily basically spent her years living in the world of illusion telling and repeating her own narrative and having noone to interfere in her world and show her that. The mother in Tan`s story was unable to understand that the rules of success and fortune are common in all the countries and considered America the land of incredible, almost magic opportunities like most immigrants do: “You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous”. And as her daughter was the most reliable way to achieve fame and success instantly the mother started looking for talents that could be sold to public. However, pure coincidence made the mother believe that piano was the thing in which her daughter can be genius. The mother seemed to be completely blind and overwhelmed with her illusions of future success. She ignored deafness of the daughter`s teacher and even did not mind listening to Jing-mei`s playing until the day of the concert. Unfortunately the revelation turned out to be proportional to the degree of illusion- the mother became absolutely numb and unable to react adequately to her daughter`s failure. Ironically, even after many years when the daughter was an adult woman herself who gave up the hope of becoming a genius long ago, the mother still was persuaded deep in her soul that the girl could become famous: “You have natural talent. You could be a genius if you want to." "No, I couldnt." "You just not trying," my mother said”. It is interesting that the characters had so much in common in terms of their unwillingness to change but their perception of society was absolutely opposite. Emily was indifferent to public opinion as much as her father and her actions were not dictated by possible reaction of the neighbors. She learned how to carry her head high enough not to notice rumors about her. The whole life of Emily was presented through the lenses of the village dwellers following her every step but for Emily it did not matter. Jing-mei`s mother was another case- her whole life she tried to prove the world that she is worth something. Probably her complexes of an immigrant influenced her as well as the loss of the children in China. In one of the episodes when she is talking to another mother she deliberately exaggerated her daughter`s talents: “If we ask Jing-mei wash dish, she hear nothing but music. Its like you cant stop this natural talent." So her disappointment was more tragic because it was public but if it happened privately she would be affected less. Conclusion So for both characters inability to perceive the world objectively was harmful and degrading. Inability and unwillingness to accept and to create real and truthful narrative to explain their life events resulted in appearance of serious internal conflicts which had tragic consequences. Further, inability to adapt these narratives to the changes of the world made characters stiff and provoked their growing illusions. However, the more serious illusory world is created around characters the more serious final disappointment is. In the case of Emily living in archaic world of things and inability to solve conflicts lead heroine to inability to accept death. As a result the woman spent her whole life in the house of stuffed with things near the body of the beloved dead man. Her indifference to public opinion only made her unwillingness to change worse: she denied the truth dramatically keeping her head high and not listening to anybody. For the second personage from Tan`s story unwillingness to accept real narrative resulted in forcing her daughter to become what she could not be. The mother, driven by her “magical” vision of opportunities in the USA and blinded by the possibility of fast success saw her daughter as a prodigy denying truth for many years. Public opinion was the motivating factor in Tan`s story as the heroine was preoccupied with what people would say and think about her life and family. Public shame was the price to pay for the Tan`s hero. So creating objective narrative is the condition of development and evolution for characters as well as people. Works Cited Tan, A. “Two Kinds”.1989.Retrieved from: http://s3.amazonaws.com/scschoolfiles/400/two_kinds_by_amy_tan.pdf Faulkner, W. “A Rose for Emily”. 1930. Retrieved from: http://www.whrhs.org/cms/lib07/NJ01001319/Centricity/Domain/104/a%20rose%20for%20emily.pdf Read More