How Vainly Men Themselves Amaze

How Vainly Men Themselves Amaze

Analysis

Leo Tolstoy once said: “It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness”.

The text under consideration is “How Vainly Men Themselves Amaze” by H.E. Bates. The main character of the story, a young man of eighteen named Franklin, is at the seaside resort with his parents. There he meets Mrs. Palgrave, a very attractive woman of ripe age. She is on vacation with two children and a young German girl Heidi taking care of them. Mrs. Palgrave seduces Frankie and they have a very passionate love affair. Soon she has to go back to London for a couple of days. At that time Frankie gets to know Heidi better, and he understands how genuine and charming she is. He falsly in love with her. But when Mrs. Palgrave returns and finds everything out she sends Heidi away. Through the contrast between the two women the author conveys the theme that appearances are deceptive and only sincerity can lead to true love.

The author describes the female characters of the story in a very different way. Mrs. Palgrave is a typical femme fatale. “She was a beautifully boned woman, about forty, evenly tanned to a deep gold”, her hair is auburn. Wearing her two piece swim suit she demonstrates her well-developed figure with her stomach flat, her navel a delicate shadowy shell and long beautifully shaped legs. Much attention is paid to the peculiar nature of Mrs. Palgrave’s eyes: “The pupils of them were like bright bird’s eggs, mottled and stenciled green and orange-brown”. The author is so particular about her eyes because they are known to be ‘the mirror of the soul’. And the eyes of Mrs. Palgrave are more of an animal. Mrs. Palgrave holds Frankie in a gaze without the flicker of an eyelid. It is a good clue to the character's personality as it hints at her savage nature. She is using Frankie like a vampire. As for Heidi, she is a blonde tall young woman. She seems to be reserved: “Even at distance he thought the girl had an aloof aristocratic, even supercilious air”. Her frigid blue eyes are motionless, calm and even hostile when she makes eye contact with Mrs. Palgrave. The girl's appearance seems not to fit the role she plays in the story. But the first impressions can be deceptive, and very soon Frankie understands this. Heidi turns out to be cordial when she is not face to face with her mistress. Her smile is unexpectedly friendly. She is genuine: “The joke was lost on the boy but the German girl immediately laughed with such spontaneity, her mouth wide open, her head thrown back, that everything about her was suddenly amazingly warm. The transformation was so startling that he laughed infectiously too.”

To describe the women’s appearances the author uses different colours. Mrs. Palgrave is dressed to kill. She is airburn-haired, she has orange-pink nails and the lips of the same colour. She wears emerald swim-suit, a yellow scarf and yellow beach shoes. Her bright colourful appearance is meant to attract a prey. On the contrary, there are only natural colours in Heidi’s description. White and blue prevail: “It at once struck him that her hair was almost identical in colour with the sand, so incredibly fine and sun-bleached that it was almost white”. Her eyes are pale blue. She wears a plain white swim-suit and a blue wrap. At dinner “Heidi was wearing a dress: a simple affair of deep blue with pipings of white”. These two colours are not chosen by the author accidentally. They symbolize the sand and the sea. So, the characters’ appearances are confronted to illustrate the difference between the artificial beauty of Mrs. Palgrave and the natural beauty of Heidi.

Mrs. Palgrave’s attitude to her children contrasts starkly with that of Heidi’s. The children annoy their mother and she tries to get rid of them. When her son comes to kiss her she says: “Oh! Go away. You hands are simply filthy”. And when the children go away, with an amazement touched by embarrassment, Franklin “ saw the expression on her face miraculously transformed, all tension gone”. Although speaking to Frankie Mrs. Palgrave seems to be a very nice person, the way she treats her children shows us the darker side of her nature. “ Yes, Mrs. Palgrave. But sometimes there is a moment when the children are to happy to be…” – “Oh, buzz along. And take that silly ball with you. It’s been plaguing us to death all morning”. This dialogue between the two women shows their attitude to the children best of all. The only person Mrs. Palgrave cares about is herself. As for Heidi, she loves the children and tries to meet their interests.

It is obvious that Mrs. Palgrave’s will “moves the action of the plot”. At the beginning of the story she uses every glance, and every gesture to essay her power over Frankie. When she brushes away the grains of sand from her body, she dips a hand down between her breasts saying that that was the worst of sand. It got into everything. Eating fruits she licked the juice away voluptuously. By her actions Mrs. Palgrave provokes Frankie. She inspires him with passion but pretends to be “totally unaware that anything had remotely disturbed him”, playing withhim. That is how she gains her object. Frankie and Mrs. Palgrave enjoy spending their time together. And when she leaves for London he is sure to miss her a lot. But he doesn’t. “All his emotions were exhausted, drained to a state of dry fatigue. In revulsion from passion he found that he wanted merely to swim, walk idly along the beach… What had been boredom now became a balm”. To be with Heidi is also a balm for Franklin. Close to her, he feels peaceful and happy: “The very ordinariness of this conversation succeeded in deepening his own feelings of satisfaction to a point almost of serenity. He felt as if relaxing after a long, tough swim”. Just a couple of days ago Frankie was fascinated by Mrs. Palgrave. But thanks to Heidi, he understands that real beauty is something inside. “The girl sitting in front of him seemed like a bud that had only partly opened. Her physical appeal aroused in him no open excitement. He felt content merely to watch her, framed with an astonishing air of purity against sea and sunset”. Now that Frankie has fallen in love with Heidi he knows what Mrs. Palgrave is worth: “He suddenly felt an extreme spasm of distaste for Mrs. Palgrave.” He understands that she is hypocritical, egotistical and suffering from a superiority complex. The sexual satisfaction he had with her has nothing to do with true love. His love affair with Mrs. Palgrave has taught the young man to size up people.

It is difficult to distinguish between real and artificial beauty. And it is very important to tell true love from passion. So the theme emerges from the story as a whole: sincerity opens the inner beauty of a person and makes him/her more valuable than the most talented hypocrite.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04