Troubles: Analysis of Major Characters
"Troubles: Analysis of Major Characters" explores the intricacies of interpersonal relationships and cultural tensions during a tumultuous period in Irish history. The protagonist, Major Brendan Archer, embodies the experience of a British officer grappling with uncertainty and decay while navigating his engagement to Angela Spencer. Archer's observations reveal the eccentricities and complexities of the Anglo-Irish elite, notably represented by Angela, who contrasts her lively correspondence with a distant personal demeanor, ultimately succumbing to illness. Her father, Edward Spencer, serves as a volatile figure who wrestles with his feelings of loss and resentment towards the Irish, while his son Ripon is characterized by his carefree approach to life and romantic entanglements. The narrative also introduces Sarah Devlin, whose charm and cruelty highlight the fraught dynamics between British and Irish identities. Other characters, such as the vengeful tutor Evans and the duplicitous butler Murphy, further illustrate the deep-seated animosities and societal fractures of the time. This character-driven analysis invites readers to reflect on themes of cultural identity, loss, and the human condition amidst conflict.
Troubles: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: J. G. Farrell
First published: 1970
Genre: Novel
Locale: Ireland
Plot: Comic realism
Time: 1919–1921
Major Brendan Archer, the protagonist, a shy, well-bred British major who witnesses the fall of the British empire in Ireland at first hand. Tired, disoriented, and shell-shocked, Archer goes to Kilnalough to investigate his uncertain engagement to Angela. As he patiently awaits some personal response from her, he becomes fascinated by the uncertainty, decay, and general Irishness of her surroundings, and he experiences the frustrations and lunacies of Anglo-Irish life and the troubles that provide the satiric edge of the book. Valuing propriety, reason, and detachment, he is amazed at the eccentricity and the vulgar excesses of the Anglo-Irish. As he seeks to bring order to the chaos about him, he gradually takes on hotel responsibilities. He provides a liberal outsider's view on the viciousness of reprisals and a pro-Irish perspective in debates with his host. Except for occasional rather vague sexual fantasies, he is brusque, judicious, and responsible: a peacemaker. For his trouble, the Sinn Féin bury him neck-high in sand to let him drown with the tide. Only rescue by the small, elderly ladies of the Majestic Hotel allows him to flee Ireland with his life and with the only reward for his efforts: the hotel's much-abused statue of Venus.
Angela Spencer, Archer's Anglo-Irish fiancée. A straightforward mine of trivial gossip in letters, Angela is a remote, untouchable model of decorum in person. She finessed a slight acquaintance with Major Archer into an engagement, and her detailed letters provide a graspable reality at odds with the confusion left by the war. She soon disappears into her room, however, only to exit in a coffin, having slowly succumbed to leukemia. Her deathbed letter is as long-winded and embarrassing as her personal presence. It is her tenuous relationship with Archer that motivates his observations on the Anglo-Irish troubles.
Edward Spencer, Angela's eccentric and volatile father, the owner of the Majestic Hotel. He is “a fierce man in flannels” with a stiff, craggy face, rugged brow, and clipped mustache, along with a broken nose and flattened ears that testify to his career as a boxer. The stony set to his jaw suggests his hot temper as he fights—with impatience, irascibility, and resignation—a losing battle against decay. A sportsman and dog lover, at times he is overbearing, opinionated, and tyrannical, at times weak and sentimental. He provides an Anglo-Irish view of the reprisals, of mixed marriages (religion and race), and of the Irish (a subhuman and superstitious rabble composed of criminals and fanatics). His hate-filled desire to avenge the English loss of Ireland leads him purposely to shoot a Sinn Féiner for tampering with his provocatively displayed statue of Queen Victoria. He is Archer's opposite, his rival for Sarah, and his burden.
Ripon Spencer, Angela's roguish brother. Compelled by his glands rather than his mind, Ripon is a lazy, ill-mannered bumpkin who spends his days tossing jackknives and romancing village women. He finally elopes with the chubby but winsome Maire, the Roman Catholic daughter of the wealthiest man in Kilnalough, to the consternation of both families.
Sarah Devlin, a temperamental Roman Catholic flirt. Charming and cruel, she becomes the second unattainable object of Archer's affection, not only because of her youth, her gray eyes, and her attractive sunburn but also because of her sharp-tongued, aggressively Irish wiles. She is catty, rude, self-pitying, and self-deprecating, yet men continue to pay her court, even before she jettisons her wheelchair. Her biting letters of local life and her London visit lure Archer back to Ireland, while the smitten Edward Spencer pays her medical bills. She spurns them both for a brutish British soldier who scorns her race and beats her regularly. Her scandalous behavior and shocking comments suggest the irrationality of the love/hate relationship between the British and the Irish.
Evans, a prototype of Irish rage, the venomous tutor to Spencer's two frolicsome and mischievous daughters, Faith and Charity. Evans nurses his explosive sense of outrage and injustice. Belligerent and aggressive, he deals the grand-mother's attacking cat a crippling blow and then, in an ecstasy of violence and with a “savage rictus in his white pocked face,” hurls it against the wall. Later, at the Majestic's final ball, he displays open antipathy for guests and hosts alike.
Murphy, a prototype of Irish deceit, the sullen, two-faced, aged hotel butler. His face is wrinkled and wizened, with his few teeth discolored. Murphy hides his mad hatred of anything English and his malevolent joy at English suffering behind a façade of loyal subservience. Despite his long years of service, he abuses the defenseless and chuckles at their discomfort. Ultimately, he ignites the hotel, its multitude of cats, and himself in an orgy of hate.