The Paper Men: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Paper Men: Analysis of Major Characters" provides an insightful examination of key figures in a narrative centering around the complex relationships and struggles of its protagonists. Wilfred Townsend Barclay, an English novelist grappling with personal demons, is portrayed as a man caught between addiction and a deep desire for meaning, particularly as he reflects on his tumultuous past and the impact of his fame. His interactions reveal an indifference to those around him, including his family, illustrating a flawed character that is both self-aware and manipulative.
In contrast, Richard "Rick" Linbergh Tucker, an American academic, is depicted as a desperate figure, whose obsessive pursuit of Barclay for biographical purposes leads him down a path of humiliation and moral degradation. Rick's physical presence and evolving style serve as a visual representation of his inner turmoil and escalating desperation. The narrative further introduces Mary Lou Tucker, Rick's young wife, who becomes an unwitting pawn in Rick's ambitions, highlighting the intersection of personal aspirations and relational dynamics. Together, these characters navigate themes of obsession, neglect, and the search for identity, inviting readers to reflect on the complexity of human relationships and the burdens of ambition.
The Paper Men: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: William Golding
First published: 1984
Genre: Novel
Locale: England, Switzerland, and Italy
Plot: Domestic realism
Time: The early 1980's
Wilfred (Wilf) Townsend Barclay, a successful English novelist. Turning sixty, with a scraggly yellow-white beard and thatch of hair and a broken-toothed grin, Wilf is struggling with his addictions to alcohol and women. The latter leads to his divorce and departure from his house in Wiltshire to become a wanderer around the globe. After the early death of his parents—he never knew his father—he had become a bank clerk. His inaccuracies were tolerated only because of his prowess as a wing threequarter on the local rugby team, but eventually he was fired. Spells as a groom, an actor, and a provincial reporter, then wartime service, preceded the writing of his first novel, Coldharbour. His success was maintained by such later novels as AllWeLikeSheep, The Birds of Prey, and Horses at the Spring. Although he is a skeptic about miracles, his aesthetic interest in stained glass leads him into an Italian cathedral, where he collapses in front of an image of Christ and subsequently claims to be suffering from the stigmata (except for the fatal wound in the side). Averse to but flattered by the desperate attempts of Rick Tucker to become his biographer, he treats him literally like a dog while alternately evading and manipulating him. Less excusably, he treats his wife, daughter, and acquaintances with an indifference scarcely mitigated by his financial generosity. His capacity for self-analysis allows him to see himself as a clown caught with his pants falling down.
Richard (Rick) Linbergh Tucker, an American academic. Six feet, three inches tall and weighing 225 pounds, Rick is covered by a forest of dark hair, has a broad nose with a bridge slightly sunken, a long upper lip, and the lower one dropped a fraction from it. In the years he spends trailing Wilfred Barclay, Rick later affects an Afro hairstyle, a shirt open to the navel, flared white trousers trimmed with sequins, and a gold necklace with every kind of trendy ornament attached. First as a diffident and plodding graduate student, then as a tenured assistant professor in the Department of English and Allied Studies at the University of Astrakhan in Nebraska, Rick trails Wilf around Europe, deviously trying to get Wilf to appoint him as his official biographer. Frustrated, humiliated, and growing increasingly ludicrous and desperate in his obsessive pursuit, Rick at the end appears to be turning to murder to secure his prey.
Mary Lou Tucker, Rick's wife. A slim twenty-year-old former student of Rick at Astrakhan University who majored in flower arranging and bibliography. She serves as bait in an unsuccessful attempt to lure Wilf into signing a document appointing Rick as Wilf's official biographer. Although he finds her mind as interesting as a piece of string, Wilf does base the character Helen Davenant, in his pastoral novel Horses at the Spring, on her. After splitting up with Rick, Mary Lou is reported to have become one of the women kept by Halliday, Rick's rich sponsor.