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.
I thought your blog post was very insightful. After reading over your blog post I was able to formulate a question that you might help clarify. I am interested to know why you do not like books that leave it up to the readers imagination to interpret the book? Although I would agree that it was frustrating at times when I had to come to my own conclusions. I got a lot of good insight out of your post and enjoyed what it you had to say.
ReplyDeleteThe theme that Megan focused caught my attention throughout the reading of Wieland, or Transformation. Indeed, one of the focuses from reading is perhaps the presence of the voice. Carwin, who is the stranger that possesses rare gift of ventriloquism, or his voice, led to many tragic events. Clearly from reading, his application of this gift precipitates the downfall of the Wieland’s. His voice is something that allowed them to act upon his intention, and it seems to be taking control over them, though his true intention is unclear. While such intervention fills ambiguity around by such matter, Clara voices the reason by logically questioning and reasoning through her narrative. As many concerns arise, possible interpretation could be taken based on the intention of Carwin’s voice, and see Clara’s narrative responses upon his voice.
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree that Carwin’s true intention upon delivering his voices around is still a remaining mystery that we cannot directly identify in this story. As Megan mentions, we can see his intention of wanting to glimpse into Wieland’s life style or to mess with them. Though, I can interpret this fact as his intention to test Clara, not necessary to take it to chaotic consequence. Briefly speaking, to the point of Carwin’s confession, I can see that his intention started from where he was exceedingly curious about Clara and her remarkable character. He gradually started using his voice to where Carwin used many times to deceive on their way. Though eventually, he began to repent of his actions and thought of how he produced bad things when he didn't intend to go that far. He felt terrible for inflicting such mental perturbation upon Clara and others. Thus, I can see his original intention as being simply testing her, though he took it too far. Among many ways to discover his intention, I think this is one of possible interpretations of his true intention.
Furthermore, this story is fully narrated by Clara herself. I can see the overall view to this story, as Megan mentions, is a recollection of unfortunate events in her lifetime. From the point where the presence of the voice intervened them, along with meeting Carwin later in the story, confusion gradually stacked upon them, especially Clara. She presented her logical thoughts and voiced her reasoning towards what she thought to be supernatural. Up to the point when Carwin confessed, she finally clarified her logical concerns and reasoning of things happened to the point of how Wieland ended up being a murderer. Though, in contrast to certain forgiveness that I’ve mentioned above, she takes blame on Carwin. Essentially, from beginning to the end of Clara’s narrative, I think Megan pointed out to the good point that her primarily purpose of telling story thoroughly by her narrative is ultimately her wish for others in preventing from the problems like what she had.
From reading the story, I really find interesting in Megan’s post, identifying the intention held by Carwin, and making connections with it in relation to the narrative that Clara presents through the story, based on her voice of reason. Overall, with many given clues and interpretations, I also think it is upon us to decide and explore, based on Clara’s narrative, on the conclusion to phenomena in this story. Indeed, complexity of understanding to this novel remains.