Both physically and mentally Essays

Both physically and mentally Essays Both physically and mentally Essay Both physically and mentally Essay In Captain Corellis Mandolin, Alekos is a character who is extremely isolated from civilization, both physically and mentally, as his way of thinking, innocent and almost childish, contrasts deeply with that of most of the central people of the novel, military members which are obviously connected to the war, and the whole situation itself. Alekos world of fireworks and diversion is not other than the crude and brutal world at war, factor constantly present in the readers thoughts, mainly due to De Berniies gory descriptions of the its horrors: The pieces of skull looked grey and were coated in membrane and thick blood. Some of the fluid was bright red, and some of it was crimson. He was still alive. Alekos acts as the authors main tool to express the pointlessness and stupidness of war and conflict altogether by contrasting his almost wise naivety and innocence with the corruption and evil of the act of war itself. We have stated the his characteristics exhibit an element of wisdom because he seems to always have a simple yet interesting panoramic perspective of the events, so for example, when there is a raging battle in the island below, Alekos thinks of the explosions as exciting fireworks: surely a nave position, but one that lowers the significance of human conflict immensely making it seem ridiculous, like children playing with toy rockets, leading the reader to rethink the true importance of ones actions overall, this effect of this and wise innocence is reinforced by Alekos age: at the beginning of the novel we are told that he is approximately sixty years old and as the years pass he seems equally strong: Alekos was a man who at sixty would be the same as he had been at twenty, thin and strong, a prodigy of slow endurance, as incapable of mercurial flight as any of his goats.  This element of omniscience and elevation (connected with divinity) is also apparent from his living location: high up Mt. Aenos where he can observe from an exteriorised perspective everything that happens on the island below and also from the fact that in Chapter I Dr. Iannis writings refer to a temple to god Zeus, the god of gods, in the summit of Mt. Aenos, giving Alekos character a clear divine connotation. The implausibility of Alekos is in this case much more deliberate and subtle, as an element of magical realism, this is to say, camouflaged by the narrative style and reactions of the characters among other devices, (feature proper of that literary technique) than in Brave New World. In this case the character is defined by this implausibility, instead of this last one being a residual product of the former. There is a clear purpose to symbolically represent the human value of well-led wisdom, a particularly significant one in context with the setting in which most of human knowledge is used to develop military tactics and weapons to destroy each other, therefore the aim of depicting war as senseless and idiotic is successfully accomplished at least in the sphere of influence Alekos within the storyline. In conclusion, the seemingly unrealistic or implausible characters in the context of each novel do play a crucial role in the development of the ideas the author wants to portray. In the first case, the Savage acts as the ambassador of our proper human passions in the Brave New World so that Huxleys point of view on the conflict presented, the trading of freedom and high art for ignorant bliss, is conveyed properly, using the necessary narrative subjective ness. However small carelessnesss in the plot create an involuntary implausibility in this character making it not at all convincing in the underlying levels, yet no less effective in the conceptual clash and further debate, which is the whole point of the novel. In Captain Corellis Mandolin a much different technique is employed by De Bernià ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½res as we have observed, making of Alekos equally effective in transmitting the authors ideas as John, but doing so in a more artful and thought up way than Huxley through a subtle symbolic representation of the human values behind the authors call to innocence and modesty as the ultimate form of wisdom.