Intentions and Voices of Reason
by Megan Renner
After completing Wieland, the theme that drew my
attention the most was the voice of reasoning that convinces each individual
character what his or her intentions are. When Wieland killed his family, his
driving force and reasoning for murder was because of a “voice” that he has
convinced himself comes from God. Without that “voice” Wieland loses his
initial intentions for killing his wife and children. When Carwin admits to
being the voice that Wieland hears he responds with grief and despair: “His
eyes were downcast; he was motionless; his respiration became hoarse, like that
of a man in the agonies of death” (Brown 210). We begin to see the humanity
left within Wieland and how his passion for religion becomes his voice of
reason for performing a mass murderer without question. Once he lost his voice
of reason, we see him as a broken man who can’t fully grasp what he has just
done to his wife and children.
After reading that passage, I began
to question Carwin and his true intentions throughout the novel. He seems to
show an interest in Clara but as a reader, I still don’t fully understand why
Carwin did the things he did. He made Pleyel believe that Clara and he were
together in the bushes. He almost raped Clara. Because of Clara’s suggestion
that he is of a lower class, maybe we as readers can believe that he wanted a glimpse
into the life style of the upper class and never actually liked them. His true
intentions can vary on whether he just wanted to mess with the Wieland’s and
Pleyel or he saw them as enemies and wanted to exact revenge on them. Carwin
was always the mysterious character and I think that he used his ventriloquism
to his advantage, not caring whether or not it affected anybody else.
Clara’s narration throughout the
novel led me to believe that she was trying to convince us as the reader and
herself that what happened to Wieland was merely a series of unfortunate
events. She tries to grasp an understanding of logic, clearly stating that she
doesn’t believe in the supernatural and Wieland’s state of mind and the murder
of his wife and children was a tragic event. She places a majority of her blame
on Carwin stating: “Mixed up with notions of supernatural agency were the
vehement suspicions which I entertained, that Carwin was the enemy whose
machinations had destroyed us. I thirsted for knowledge and for vengeance”
(Brown 183). Clara, our brave narrator uses her tale as means of trying to make
sense of the events that happened to Wieland. Her voice of reason is that there
must be a logical explanation and Carwin has been at the scene of many of the
events that led up to Wieland becoming a murder. As a reader, it crossed my
mind once or twice to believe that Clara might be going insane along with her
brother. This event will haunt her for the rest of her life and her reputation
will always be the sister of a murder. I was waiting for Clara to snap at some
point and go into a fit of rage and despair. Clara’s narration provides an
intention for replaying the events in her head and hoping that what happened to
her will never happen to anyone else.
Overall, I believe that Brown wanted
to leave the mystery surrounding Wieland and Carwin to be up to our own
interpretation. Usually when I read a book that allows you to do this, I don’t
enjoy it. I don’t like when you as a reader are still trying to make sense of
the events played before you and that there are multiple reasoning’s and
conclusions you can draw. I understand how this works for Wieland being
a suspense/mystery novel, but I prefer being told exactly what happened rather
then driving myself crazy trying to make sense of it myself.
