2. “Novels present flawed character(s) in challenging environment(s).”
To what extent do you agree with this view?
Writing from personal experience and having lived his entire life in a small town called Hawera, not far from New Plymouth in the shade of Mount Taranaki. Ronald Hugh Morrieson’s novels were largely based on the environment that he grew up in as a young boy. Morrieson was borne, lived and died in Hawera and was aware of the inhabitants of this town. In the novel ‘The Scarecrow’ his environment of choice, Klynham had a small dense population that was similar to that of Hawera with a wide variety of characters. Being an Alcoholic himself, Morrieson was well informed of the happenings that go on in town, thanks to the drunken tales of Hawera’s inhabitants. These tales are reflected in his literary work, exposing a different side of New Zealand’s ‘not-so-perfect’ countryside.
The Scarecrow is told by Neddy Pointdexter, a teenager living in the 1930s New Zealand and struggling to come to terms with his family of alcoholics. Neddy is the main character of the novel. As he progresses through adolescence, strange desires and urges start to happen. In the novel, he begins as a young innocent child but as the story progresses he loses his innocence bit by bit. This is evident when he is caught by the Lynch Gang and sees Don Butcher amusing himself with the submissive Peachy. “The boys were practicing on him… for the great day when they could procure the genuine article – girls.” The realization of what was occurring with Peachy has added to his lust for sexual needs. Neddy explores his, flaw, sexual fantasies with women and dreams of having sexual intercourse. Unable to satisfy his urge to have intercourse, he explores and experiments with masturbation. He gets his source of stimulation from reading magazines about film stars and lying in bed at night thinking about women, his blood is “simmering like an Irish stew”. Afraid of his obsession with spend long periods of time masturbating, he confides in his brother “I told him all about what I was up to and how, no matter how hard I tried, I could not help myself. “I’ll go blind. I’ll die.” In some ways what he does is perfectly natural but ultimately he was in a conservative environment during the 1930s, where such acts were deemed inappropriate and highly frowned upon.
‘The same week our fowls were stolen, Daphne Moran had her throat cut.” The opening sentence from the Scarecrow begins with 2 crimes committed, one so “trivial and the other so diabolical”. Uncle Athol, Neddy’s Uncle is the mastermind and culprit of the missing fowls. Despite being a member of Neddy’s immediate family, Uncle Athol is represented as a flawed character in the novel. ‘The trouble with the Pointdexters was ready cash and Athol Claude Cudby”.
Being an alcoholic, he appears in the novel most of the time as drunk, good for nothing and constantly messing things up. When Pru and Neddy finds some old paint in the shed and decided to pain the house, Athol decided to help out with a blow-torch to peel off the paint, however the house ends up engulfed in flames no thanks to him. “The place is on fire!” she hooted. “Uncle Athol has set the house on fire!” He is essentially a misunderstood soul, despite the good intentions; his actions usually end up in disastrous consequences as seen in this case. Being in an environment, which consists of ‘Ma’ he is constantly being looked down upon for his alcoholism. This makes it hard for him to do anything right as his confidence and self-esteem is often low, which results in him trying to take life easy and not working hard.
The evil magician known to many as Salter the Sensational or Hubert Salter commits the diabolical crime, the murder of Daphne Moran. He is the epitome of all that is evil, an evil monster with no capacity for mercy. He has many flaws one of which is being a sex-murderer and necrophiliac. He is an unwanted guest in the sleepy town of Klynham, running away from the murder of Daphne Moran. He is a ‘sex-oh’ who ‘cocks and roots’. Salter is unable to control his evil desires and sexual urges; he lacks the mental capacity to know what’s right and what is wrong. He preys on Prudence, Neddy’s sister and tries to rape her but is stopped by Neddy. Salter murders Mabel Collinson is seen by the local half-wit as “a trouser less man…crouching over her, fondling her.” Having witnessed this act, Salter murders the local half-wit emphasizing his flaws. Having a low self-esteem he commits his first murder when his assistant Zita, sneers at him. Salter has issues and does not belong to Klynham or anywhere in the world for that matter, he does not belong in a normal society, as he is not able to see that his sexual deviance is wrong and unacceptable.
In almost all cases, the flaws of these characters cannot be helped; they have been programmed to behave this way. Somewhere during their childhood or course of maturity they strayed from the path of a normal mentality. Neddy is an exception as his flaw was only due to being in the wrong time frame. Characters such as Salter and Athold Cudby exists amongst us and are evident in the rapist, serial killers and alcoholics that we have come to learn off through papers and TV-shows. In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, Lord Voldermort starts off as Tom Riddle the head boy of Hogwarts and an outstanding individual at school. However due to his lust for power and flaws he becomes evil and threatens to turn the world into one of darkness and fear.
Flaws are common and typical of human beings. No individual is perfect. However the extent as to the flaws of these characters is such that it poses a risk to those around them and the environment that they live in. Their flaws are uncommon and are beyond repair. They exist only to destroy and cause unhappiness to those around them therefore, they are stuck in an environment that has no need for them. They can either be seen as victims of their own flaws or victims of their indifference with those around them.
Word Count 1062
Mohamed Sahdique Caubang
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