Hey everyone! Since Ms. Parrish can't get internet access at the track meet, she has asked me to post the blog. So in class, just before the bell rang, Emma had asked a question...
What is the force that ties the characters to the town and make them incapable of ever truly leaving?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I am still thinking about exactly what the answer is to this question. But just a thought i have is that i feel like all of the characters are searching for something that they cannot find. Mick is searching for purpose and truth in herself... "What good was it? That was the question she would like to know. what the hell good was it. All the plans she had made, and the music."(McCullers 350). Blount is searching for understanding. He thinks he "knows" and wishes to teach people or find others who "know"...Biff as well is searching for purpose and understanding. The novel ends with Biff...the author explains that Biff keeps the his restaurant open all night although he rarely gets customers. this gave me the impression that biff was waiting for or expecting something to come.
ReplyDeleteI feel that in general, the town represents life. The fact that life is this seemingly cyclical thing in which we are all living. We see that the only characters able to actually leave the town are Singer and Copeland. Singer with a bullet in his chest, and Copeland on his death bed. I feel that the force that ties these characters down is their desire to find purpose, understanding and meaning to life. The fact that they remain in this town while doing so, i think, resembles the way in which life can be full of routines and seemingly inescapable and endless cycles while we still search for purpose and understanding.
I agree with Anna that the characters are bound to the town, in continuous attempt to achieve understanding and purpose in life. Although the characters may not seem connected, they all come together at the end of the novel to mourn the loss of Singer. Each person that spoke to Singer shared the common need for understanding and companionship. I think every character feels that their thoughts are not important, or not even real unless they share them with someone else that values and understands them. Everyone believes that Singer understands them, and when he dies, a part of them dies too. “He remembered all the innermost thoughts he had told to Singer, and with his it seemed to him that they were lost” (McCullers 341). When the people realize they all desire understanding, they relate with one another. “The silence in the room was deep as the night itself. Biff, stood transfixed, lost in his meditations…for in a swift radiance of illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and valor. Of the endless fluid passage of humanity through endless time. And of those who labor of those who – one word – love. But for a moment only. For in him he felt a warning, a shaft of ” (359). I am still slightly confused by this quote, but I believe it shows how understanding and empathy among a community cannot last, because it is eventually overcome by fear, and the need for privacy. I agree that life within the town is cyclical, because characters such as Mick, Blount and Copeland never seem to find complete balance between privacy and understanding. The need to complete the balance is the force that ties the characters to the town. They are never truly able to leave because of the dim, but possible hope they could fulfill their lives with understanding by the people around them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything that has been said thus far. To try to add on, I think that while all of these characters are searching for their own answers, I think that they are using each other to find these answers. While they may not realize it, all 4 visitors go to Singer for the same reason- to talk to him, to vent really, about their lives and hope that he has some sort of answer. I think that this is why none of them made any drastic changes to their lives while Singer was living; all of the change came after he was dead. It's almost as if he was holding them back.
ReplyDeleteI thought that is was really interesting that Mick was the one to find him dead-what does this say about their relationship? Was she the closest to finding her meaning and changing her life, and that is why McCuller's has Mick find Singer? Just a thought. but Back to the question, I definitely agree that everyone is bound to the town searching for their purposes and living in a cyclical manner. To add on to what has been said, I think that while everyone is searching, they seem to be at a loss. Blount is a communistic drunkard. Biff is a widowed restaurant owner. Copeland is a dying doctor who fails to spread his word to his people. And Mick is a teenager who matured too quickly and dropped her love of music to work in a ten cent store. All of them fail at something, but also achieve some new sense of life after Singer died.
A quote that I found really interesting, on page 340, "He died to Save you". I don't know if this applies to Singer's death at all, but I just thought it was really interesting and quite appropriate in context, seeing as after this, all characters start over. It's almost as if Singer's death helped them to gain some sort of initiative, and helped them to find who they really are... veering off subject a little there, but I think that applies to why they stayed in the town. Blount leaves, because he was not truly from that town, and he realizes that it is no place for him. Mick feels trapped with her new life, but I think that is the sad reality of the situation, that none of them are going to be happy with their lives now that Singer is gone. By staying, Mick and Biff hope to find what they have been searching for for so long; Copeland and Jake need to get further away to live this reality.
I know that this blog isn't intended to be ongoing, I've been away and just saw this and wanted to comment, I like the ideas above a lot.
ReplyDeleteI think the idea that Singer's death may have even saved the characters, if such a relationship had inadvertently and subconsciously become more detrimental and restraining to each of them than beneficial, is a really good one. I agree Larissa; I think Singer was holding them all back.
If the book ends with Biff, who is looking forward again at dawn to his cyclical life or another ordinary day in waiting- (Nicole!) - "Of the endless fluid passage of humanity through endless time."- it's as if (as Biff was the only one who objectively observed Singer) McCullers is trying to say that this is all we can do- wait, live in this "passage of endless time". Unlike Biff, Mick, Copeland and Blount all try to seek an absolute solution to their problems through their relationships with Singer- Singer validates them, when you want to be understood, you want your ideas validated, to matter and to be important and he gives them this (Nicole you are in my head)- and then at the end of the book Singer dies and it is realized that there is no absolute solution. Singer doesn't have the answer and so the characters have to move on, if only to seek- maybe cyclical to find purpose and seek validation and importance?
So maybe, at first, the characters are bound to the town because Singer is there and he has the answers, or they think he does. When he dies the characters (except Biff, perhaps he begins and ends in this same place of accepting the agony of "endless time" after observing all of these people who don't accept it and what happens to them) are left more lost and deeply estranged, and they re-evaluate where they are in life, where they are trying to go, because Singer was a superficial answer, as their relationships were all illusions and that deception is revealed when he dies and the reason for his death seems very inexplicable.
And Larissa, I think your question is really interesting. I forgot that Mick is the one to discover Singer's death. For some reason I always thought of Mick as the most defined, more important character of the 3 who talk to Singer- more protagonist like. Perhaps it is because she is young. All of the characters have lived more of a life to get to this point of needing to talk to Singer, they have control of their lives still, whereas Mick is young, inexperienced, her life is Singer because she has known nothing else and doesn’t have the opportunity to do anything else in High School. Or maybe, or I think, that when Singer dies the effect is most prominent in her. Music is completely lost; I think I found her ending to be the least optimistic of all. If a part of Singer becomes a part of all of them, then maybe Singer's death, what dies in Mick, is a larger, bigger, more pronounced loss, or hole, than what all of the other characters lose. Copeland dies, there is no hope for him naturally, Biff can be content or stationary in the town and be happy waiting, and Jake heads for a new start. Mick is still stuck, and now this town for the remainder of her childhood will be a reminder of Singer living upstairs, and then not.