Reading & Writing Lounge

Andromache—Unrequited Love

Its book review day again and this week I am in the mood for some nostalgia, especially for the classics. Sifting among my books, I came across Jean Racine’s Andromache in the English translation by R.C. Knight, and that’s what triggered the sentimentality. The smell of old books reminds one of old friends you chance upon on a busy thoroughfare and don’t want to let go. That’s what happened with me and I picked up the play once again after many years. Andromache marked Racine’s transition from Baroque to Modern and is set against the backdrop of the post Trojan War Epirus, Achilles’ son Pyrrhus’ kingdom. Pyrrhus brings back Andromache, the legendary Hector’s wife as slave but loves her much more than he does Hermione, his betrothed. Andromache lives only for her son and the memory of her dead husband but eventually agrees to marry her master to save her son. Hermione, in love with the noble Pyrrhus, is wooed passionately by Orestes, Clytemnestra and Agammemnon’s son, sent to Epirus as an envoy by the Greeks to warn Pyrrhus against love for the vanquished Trojan’s wife. This chain of emotions and betrayal, passion given and rejected sets off a train of actions that leads to the tragic fall of Pyrrhus. Hermione, having ordered Orestes to murder him, is crazed with remorse at the death and kills herself, but not before berating Orestes for the parricide. Orestes is spurned and disillusioned, mad at his own crime and the betrayal of Hermione, and in the last scene, swoons in impassioned rage and despair. The Trojan infant who appears to be a threat to the Greeks lives, as does his mother Andromache.

This then is the basic plot of Racine’s Andromache, rich with irony. The Trojan slave lives to see her Greek conqueror die. What sweet revenge it must have been for the proud and tragic Andromache, who yet tries to save her new husband’s legacy by rousing his people against the other Greeks who murder him. Hermione herself is full of paradox and irony. Having used the hapless Orestes as a murder intermediary, she assails him with vindictiveness, lashes his feelings verbally with a diatribe that plunges him into mad despair.

Racine’s poetry brings alive the passion of love and unrequited affection and proves the fact—difficult to accept in his time—that even royals have flaws and are all too human. What really excited me in this second reading of Andromache though, was the timelessness of the themes—jealousy of a spurned lover, war’s painful realities, passion killing, remorse. While the themes resonate in the modern age, Racine’s characters attain tragic grandeur in the style of all great tragedies.

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Hello everyone…

The market news is a day late…sorry about that. And the weekend post has been washed away in the rains. Well..well…excuses…excuses. Aren’t you tired of that? I am too. I promise to make it up to you next Friday with an entertaining TGIF post. For now…here are some links you can check out for health and environment writing.

Natural Family

Health on MSN

Stitches for patients

Emagazine

Have a great weekend.

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Peopling the Yarn: Characterization in Fiction

A Look at Life
During a session of our creative writing class, the teacher asked students to take a walk in the university campus and observe. Hesitantly, reluctantly, we did. Took a walk, that is, and observed people. We saw students of the Fine Arts faculty chiseling away at stone busts, their eyes focused on the shape before them, their fingers moving with an energy of their own; a man sat on the garden wall picking his nose with apparently no distraction to pull the digging finger away; a couple engrossed in a love fight by the pond that buzzed with afternoon flies. We watched how the boy held on to the girl’s hand as she tried to strike that eternal miffed-lover-pose in that dense afternoon warmth. By the end of our walk, we had a wealth of notes on people’s mannerisms, gait, smells and odors, behavior, the works.
We compared notes in class and tried to give a story to each character we had observed; what we had before us were real people heightened and made exciting with the help of our imagination.

Real and Imaginary
A fictional character is some amount of reality combined with a strong dash of invention. Think of Huckleberry Finn or the comic book character Tintin, or on a totally different plane, the people in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ books. The fantastic merges with the real in a stimulating narrative of people, places, and events. We remember the characters long after we put aside the book.
So for starters, as we create characters for our books, we have to observe people, make notes, and then begin to play around. Those people we watch on the road, in the café, at the bus depot, in class, or at the quarry are grist for our stories. They come alive as characters, dynamic, organic, vibrant, our own creation from the life we see around.

A Matter of Choice
So what’s the hitch? Selection. How do we select those characteristics that help us create convincing people? While real is important, what creates great characters is the selection of those traits that can be made dramatic for effect and relevance. The most mundane trait can be heightened to make it dramatic, but it should have the potential for drama. A harmless quirk could be the gateway to a wonderful and fantastic character. Imagine a man who cannot stop tweaking his moustache or a woman who believes only fat men. The idiosyncrasy opens up a window, provides a clue to creating the persona but cannot be used as a support system for the entire character. The crux is judicious selection.
What’s at stake in this selection is the character’s credibility. The quirk should fit the structure of the character, not jar as a loose overhanging piece that cannot be accounted for. Imagine Anna Karenina with a twitch that renders her comic and undignified in bits and parts of the novel. Doesn’t fit, does it?
Credibility could make or mar a character, so we have to keep an eye on that detail that fits the rest of the picture and takes it ahead. Detail is the key, and observation never harmed any writer.

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