Mosquitoes: Analysis of Major Characters
"Mosquitoes" is a novel that explores the dynamics among a diverse group of characters aboard the yacht Nausikaa, set against the backdrop of Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans. The central figure, Dawson Fairchild, is a successful novelist and a leader among the artists onboard, embodying a mix of optimism and disillusionment regarding contemporary art and life. His contrasting companions include Mrs. Patricia Maurier, a wealthy widow who brings together various individuals for a week of revelry but becomes increasingly frustrated by their shallow interactions.
The story also highlights Gordon, a struggling sculptor who represents the ideal of the true artist, and his complex relationships with other guests, including Patricia's niece, Pat, and the flirtatious Jenny. Other notable characters include Ernest Talliaferro, a hapless widower seeking romance, and Julius Kauffman, a cynical observer who critiques the artistic pretensions around him. Themes of artistic integrity, gender roles, and the search for genuine connection permeate the narrative, as each character navigates their personal desires and disappointments within the confines of the yacht. This intricate character study sheds light on the challenges faced by artists and individuals in a rapidly changing society.
Mosquitoes: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: William Faulkner
First published: 1927
Genre: Play
Locale: New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain
Plot: Novel of ideas
Time: August, 1925
Dawson Fairchild, a successful novelist and the natural leader of a group of artists cruising aboard the yacht Nausikaa. He is from a provincial Midwestern lower-middle-class family and confronts life and art with burly optimism, though he finds the modern world peopled with “women too masculine to conceive, men too feminine to beget” great poetry. Having admittedly lost his own first sheer infatuation with words, he writes prose now instead of poetry and devoutly maintains that “art” is anything consciously well done. Calling himself “a purely lay brother to the human race,” Fairchild is the author's portrait of Sherwood Anderson.
Mrs. Patricia Maurier, a wealthy widow and vivacious dilettante who brings artists and ordinary people together on her yacht for a weeklong party on Lake Pontchartrain, near New Orleans. Her usual pose of silly amazement turns to fright when Gordon feels her face with his hands and to disgust when her niece disappears for a day with the ship's steward. Although she is intent on her project, she loses respect for some of her guests after the yacht runs aground and their attention turns from cards and dancing to drinking, idle talk, the young women on board, and complaints about all the grapefruit she serves them.
Gordon, an impoverished sculptor, thirty-six years old. Tall, red-haired, and masculine, with a hawklike countenance and a wild, bitter heart, he personifies the novel's ideal of the true artist. His imagination is dominated by the headless, armless, and legless torso that he has fashioned in his studio. He refuses to sell it to Pat, whose pouting moves him to give her a spanking instead. Once on shore, he surprises his friends by sculpting an uncanny likeness of Mrs. Maurier.
Patricia (Pat) Robyn, Mrs. Maurier's eighteen-year-old niece and namesake, whose hard and sexless graveness epitomizes Gordon's ideal of feminine beauty. She entices the ship's steward away from the others for a treacherous daylong excursion to the mainland.
Jenny Steinbauer, a voluptuous, unreflective blonde who is invited to the party after a moment's acquaintance with Pat. She turns the gentlemen's heads but keeps her virginity intact.
Ernest Talliaferro, a balding, dapper, thirty-eight-year-old widower who wants to remarry but lacks the boldness to enthrall women. As a wholesaler of ladies' undergarments, he thinks he understands women, yet he makes a fool of himself by chasing Jenny. He manages to steal a kiss from her, and he fancies that she will sneak away from the others with him and even accept his proposal of marriage. After he clumsily pushes her into the lake, however, she ignores his pursuit.
Julius Kauffman, “the Semitic man,” Fairchild's cynical companion who enjoys pricking the vanity of artists. Always the critic, he thinks that the defining characteristic of a poet is an ability to sustain an obliviousness to the world and its compulsions.
Eva Wiseman, Kauffman's sister, a poet who believes that love and death are the only subjects of writing worth the effort and despair. She finds the trivial artistic chatter at the party both silly and dull.
Mark Frost, a ghostly young man who considers himself to be the best poet in New Orleans. Quite passive by nature, he has little to say.
Theodore Robyn, often called Gus or Josh, Pat's twin brother, who resents her intrusions. He occupies himself with whittling a wooden pipe.
Pete Ginotta, Jenny's Italian boyfriend, a gifted dancer whose humorless, reckless face is aptly set off by a stiff straw hat that he always wears.
Major Ayers, a well-traveled Englishman whose bent is decidedly mercenary rather than artistic. Believing that all Americans are constipated, he is intent on making a fortune with his recipe for a new laxative.
David West, the ship's steward, a rough and inarticulate but modest man who indulges Pat's appetites for swimming and hiking without taking advantage of her sexually. He soon leaves the ship for a better job.