The Magus: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Magus" by John Fowles delves into the complex dynamics of several key characters, each embodying distinct themes and existential dilemmas. The protagonist, Nicholas Urfe, is a disillusioned young English teacher in Greece, grappling with feelings of inauthenticity and existential boredom. His journey leads him to Maurice Conchis, a wealthy and enigmatic figure who orchestrates a series of psychological games designed to challenge Nicholas's understanding of freedom and personal responsibility. Conchis, reminiscent of a magician or god-like figure, uses the masques to profoundly influence Nicholas's life and perceptions.
Alison Kelly, Nicholas's romantic interest, is portrayed as a vital but troubled young woman, marked by her past experiences and her struggle for love and affirmation. Her connection with Nicholas is fraught with tension, culminating in a dramatic and uncertain resolution. In contrast, Lily, Conchis's goddaughter, embodies various archetypes through her roles in the psychodrama, presenting an alluring yet complex figure who challenges Nicholas's ideals of love and identity. The interplay between these characters explores themes of reality, illusion, and the search for genuine connection in a world filled with masquerades, making "The Magus" a rich tapestry of psychological and philosophical inquiry.
The Magus: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: John Fowles
First published: 1965; revised, 1977
Genre: Novel
Locale: England and Greece
Plot: Psychological realism
Time: The early 1950's
Nicholas Urfe, a young Oxford graduate who mistakes himself for a poet and takes a job teaching English at the Lord Byron School for boys on the island of Phraxos, Greece. An only child of deceased middle-class parents, in his mid-twenties, he is honest and perceptive but an Oxford dandy and a self-centered existentialist who exploits the affections of women. He goes to Greece because he is bored, needs a new mystery, and is not ready to marry Alison Kelly, his latest romantic interest. On the lonely island, he is disillusioned to discover that he is inauthentic and not a poet after all. He becomes depressed to the brink of suicide but falls in love with Greece, with his role in a masque (or psychodrama) conducted by the mysterious Maurice Conchis, and with Lily, an ideal woman who plays several roles in the masque. Conchis shapes his consciousness, making him suffer and learn. In the course of his experiences, Nicholas compares himself to Adam, Narcissus, Icarus, Candide, Theseus, Eumenides, and Orpheus. In the end, he is “disintoxicated” by the idealized Lily and returns to England, where he seeks to reconcile with Alison as his true love, his “reality” and standard by which to live.
Alison Kelly, a young Australian woman living in London who falls in love with Nicholas. An independent yet waiflike girl in her early twenties, she has a thin boyish figure, a deep tan, long hair that is bleached almost blonde, truth-seeking gray eyes in a hard face, and a salty directness. She is not beautiful, often not even pretty, but has a natural warmth and aura of sexuality. She has had an abortion and has not been happy since, and she is breaking off an affair. To Nicholas, she seems intensely vital, daring, bluntly honest, and somewhat crude. Although she is an expert coaxer and handler of men, she cannot induce him to marry her and goes off to become an air hostess. She is hurt so badly by him that she conspires in the masque of Conchis and pretends to have committed suicide, then later reveals that she is alive after all but makes him wait more than three months before giving him a chance to talk to her. At the end, it remains uncertain whether she will ever forgive him.
Maurice Conchis, a powerful rich old illusionist, or Magus, with a villa on the island of Phraxos. He is the godfather of Lily and Rose. Brown as old leather, short, and nearly bald, he is sixty to seventy years old, with intensely dark simian eyes that seem not quite human. He resembles Pablo Picasso and is also compared to Prospero, Svengali, Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Gandhi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Hades, Zeus, and God. His mother was Greek. During the German occupation in World War II, he was mayor of the village on Phraxos and survived being shot by a firing squad. At present, he has a heart condition and may die at any time. He seems to have business interests all over the world and is a connoisseur of art, a musician, a medical doctor, a hypnotist, and a sort of novelist, creating with real people. Every year, he draws a teacher at the Lord Byron School into a psychodrama, or “godgame,” that tests and may build character. He teaches Nicholas the meanings of freedom, hazard, responsible individualism, and the smile of wisdom.
Lily, a rich and cultivated young Englishwoman who plays several roles in the godgame of her godfather, Conchis. Beautiful, elegant, cool, aloof, highly cultured, multilingual, and extremely intelligent, she is everything the more normal Alison is not. She has very white skin; long, silky blonde hair; a Botticelli face; cool hyacinth eyes with tilted corners; and a Mona Lisa smile. As Artemis, Isis, Astarte, and Kali in the psychodrama, she is a goddess; as Lily Montgomery, she is a pure and genteel lady of the Edwardian period; as Julie Holmes, she is a contemporary liberated woman; and as Dr. Vanessa Maxwell, she is an “advanced” psychologist who reduces Nicholas to a negative case study. In her disintoxication of Nicholas, she makes love in front of him with her actual lover, a black American named Joe.
Rose, Lily's twin sister, who acts with her in the psycho-drama, for a while in the role of June Holmes. Nicholas differentiates between the twins by noting that Lily has a scar on her wrist and that Rose has a much more modern face.