"OCTOBER LIGHT" (JOHN GARDNER), "THE FLOATING OPERA" (JOHN BARTH) & "THE COUNTERLIFE" (PHILIP ROTH).   Term Paper ID:21720 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Compares protagonists & the ways three novels deal with reality, life, death & suicide.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Compares protagonists & the ways three novels deal with reality, life, death & suicide. Paper Introduction: This study will describe and compare the main characters in John Gardner's October Light, John Barth's The Floating Opera, and Philip Roth's The Counterlife. The study will consider the ways the protagonists in these novels deal with reality, life, death and suicide. Essentially, the study will argue that, despite the differences in the lifestyles, philosophies, and personalities of the three protagonists, they are finally quite comparable in terms of the ways they relate to life and death. The differences remain, but at heart each of the main characters have a cynical, skeptical, absurd, or otherwise generally negative attitude toward reality and life, and each of them are struggling in various ways to arrive at some perspective which would allow them to, at the very least, be more accepting of life and death. Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. For all his apparent self-knowing, however, Henry is a repressedindividual who grates on the reader much more than the outright obnoxiousJames Page. Man ages and ages, and suddenly he's dead. AndTodd Andrews decides not to kill himself and in the end is able to enjoy atleast an "enormous soothing solitude" and a "fairly" good night's sleepafter completing his book, itself called The Floating Opera. It is all to sadly true when Henry says,"There is no you, Maria, any more than there's a me. He does so to protecthimself from his pain. . . However, so does James Page, but James does so withsuch force and fire that the reader connects with him in a way it isimpossible to connect with Henry. He believes, forexample, that there is life after death, and that all good things in life---all decent things---somehow lead "upward": Call it a curious and idle opinion, it nevertheless had, at least for James Page---who was a thoughtful man, a moralist and brooder---sober implications. Henry is finally an intellectual, clever man who responds to life anddeath from his mind, from his position of cleverness. The threecharacters survive in what each sees as a harsh reality, and they manage topatch together some sort of working philosophy of life which allows them tolive, and even love and be loved occasionally, in the midst of that harshreality. In fact, he makes Henry seem like an emotional dynamo. And then, in the book's final lines, the refrain of forgiveness isrepeated as James tries to explain why he did not shoot a bear, who heimagines has repeated the lines of his wife to him, "Oh James, James!"(Gardner 434). The Floating Opera. The "counterlife" the book is meantto present is Henry's life as he sets it forth as an alternative to what hesays are the lies and distortions of his brother Nathan's books: Whenever he sat down to read one of the dutifully inscribed books [from and by his brother] that used to arrive in the mail just before publication, Henry would immediately begin to sketch in his head a kind of counterbook to redeem from distortion the lives that were recognizably, to him, Nathan's starting point (Roth 234). The question is, is Henry only angry at Nathan, or also, evenprimarily, jealous for his success and his "courage" in exposing thefamily. He feels little ornothing at his brother's funeral because essentially he is a completelyself-centered individual. . Clearly, James Page was not a loving, kind,decent man before his son's suicide, or his son would not have killedhimself in the first place. . . . As he declares, On this morning, for example, I had opened my eyes with the knowledge that I would this day destroy myself. . New York: Penguin, 1988.----------------------- 1 It was bone and meat that the world pulled downward, and the spirit, the fire of life that pushed upward, soared. On the other hand, James Page is an emotional manwho is finally capable of a truly spiritual awakening by the end of hisstory. He is not the intellectual superior of Henry, to be sure, but he isa deeper man because his rage is deeper and more fully expressed. As for the possibility of changing these or other equally toxic andhateful views: "Well, fierce and foolish opinions they might be, but he'dheld them for seventy years and more . . James sought and found somenote of forgiveness. This is revealed in the book'sfinal pages: He rubbed away tears. Even the decision to kill himself is made by Todd in a bloodless way.There is no passion in the man, as opposed to James Page, who is little butpassion, and even as opposed to the repressed Henry Zuckerman, who is atleast capable of a powerful bitterness. If James is a man hidden to himself for most of Gardner's book, HenryZuckerman in Philip Roth's The Counterlife is completely and utterlyexposed to himself and to the reader. As an existentialist, Todd has set for himself the task ofdiscovering his own values in life. His philosophy of life is summarized in terms of what would bringcomplete despair to a man more in tune with his own feelings: Water grows colder and colder and colder, and suddenly it's ice. On first meeting him, we might consider James Page in Gardner's novelto be a completely cynical and rageful man with no redemptive qualitieswhatsoever. For example, Todd's musings about nothing in the world having anyinherent value were nothing new to him. Todd should not be surprised that philosophical justifications forhis taking his own life so easily spring to mind, simply because thosejustifications were already a part of his character and were to a largedegree responsible for his thoughts of suicide in the first place. Does he seek forgivenessor reproach, or both? Essentially, the studywill argue that, despite the differences in the lifestyles, philosophies,and personalities of the three protagonists, they are finally quitecomparable in terms of the ways they relate to life and death. . . . His sonhas killed himself, primarily he was not tough enough to live up to hisfather's grueling standards. ; leering glittering-toothed monsters of ceremonies . . Here they all sat, thinking, "wasn't it brave of Nathan, wasn't it daring to be so madly aggressive and undress and vandalize a Jewish family in public," but none of them, for that "daring," had to pay a goddamn dime (Roth 235). Todd Andrews, the main character in John Barth's The Floating Opera,is a man even more emotionally estranged from life that the repressed HenryZuckerman. The final lines, however, are described as being uttered"reproachfully," so that there is some final ambiguity or paradox aboutJames' final self-reflection before he leaves us. . He had shot it for its endless, simpering advertising and, worse yet, its monstrously obscene games of greed, the filth of hell made visible in the world: screaming women, ravenous for refrigerators, automobiles . ; he was hardly about to abandonthem" (Gardner 5). The book itself is a hunt for reality. . There is only this waythat we have established over the months of performing together" (Roth366). If such opinions were all there were to the character of James Page,he would soon weary the reader. Henry found at least a kind of acceptance of life. . . Here the day was but half spent, and already premises were springing to mind, to justify on philosophical grounds what had been a purely personal decision (Barth 171). . I must confess to feeling in my tranquil way some real excitement at the idea (Barth 17 -171). It may be as you say that this is no life, but use your enchanting, enrapturing brains: this life is as close as you, and I, and our child can ever hope to come (Roth 371). Henry is a much morecivilized man, and therefore a much more repressed man. He believed sure as day in . We may disagree with James, but we know where he stands. . It is nosurprise, then, to find that Henry's bitterness is able to yield him onlythe stingiest of concessions about life: To escape into what, Marietta? . airy cliffs---not heaven, exactly, but a firm, high place luring feeling and ambition past existence as it is (Gardner 12). . He couldn't tell whether they were tears of fear or sorrow or shame or what. Page is shown to be a man who has lived most of hislife, has learned to be distrustful of everybody and everything, and is notabout to change his ways for anybody or anything. . At Nathan'sfuneral, Henry sits fuming as an editor of his brother's extols Nathan forwriting a book which exposed the family's darkest secrets: The thing that drove our family apart, thought Henry, is here being enshrined---that was designed to destroy our family. As Gardner paints him at the beginning of the novel, Page is aman we would probably not like to meet, much less spend over four hundredpages reading about. . . This study will describe and compare the main characters in JohnGardner's October Light, John Barth's The Floating Opera, and Philip Roth'sThe Counterlife. The more important consideration is that, at heart,he is a good man who has been misled by himself and others, has himselfdone his share of misleading, and has finally been broken enough by tragedyand suffering that he is able to open to life. New York: Anchor, 1988.Gardner, John. In other words, the story of Henry Zuckerman is the story of a mannot only trying to discover his own reality, but also trying to salvagethat not-yet-fully-discovered reality from the distortions of his brother'sbooks. If James Page is fleeing his wholelife from his guilt and grief about his son's suicide, and if HenryZuckerman is driven by a bitterness toward his brother, then Todd's life isdedicated to an arid self-consciousness which drains all vitality fromlife, from himself, and from the reader. As with James Page, Henry Zuckerman is an angry man. However, it turns out that there is adeeper, more reflective and open-minded side to Page. There is a cleverness, an irony,an intellectual gamesmanship about the character of Henry Zuckerman whichis absent from the straightforward character of the far more vile JamesPage. New York: Vintage, 1986.Roth, Philip. Absolutely nothing has intrinsic value. . BibliographyBarth, John. James Page is a character who lives every moment to thefullest, despite his gross character shortcomings. . October Light. In any case, it ultimately comes clear that what drives James is notrage but a tremendous grief, and what James wants most from life is nottriumph over its evil, but forgiveness in some form, even a forgivenessmixed with reproach for the life he has led. Thedifferences remain, but at heart each of the main characters have acynical, skeptical, absurd, or otherwise generally negative attitude towardreality and life, and each of them are struggling in various ways to arriveat some perspective which would allow them to, at the very least, be moreaccepting of life and death. This is not saying much about life, if anything, and it is certainlynot comparable to the true, spiritual and emotional breakthrough James Pageexperiences at the end of Gardner's book. As with the ranting James Page and thebitter Henry Zuckerman, Todd Andrews is finally not able or willing tofollow his darkest inclinations to the end. He is a man so alienated from lifethat he can arrive at the decision to kill himself as (apparently) casuallyas another man might awaken in the morning and decide to take a day offfrom work. The Counterlife. . In fact, it may well be that had Richard notkilled himself, James would have been an even more bitter and self-absorbedman. The reader gradually discovers the reason for both the bitter rageand glimmer of hopefulness which dominate the spirit of James Page. Much ofthe nature of Todd's character derives from the absurdist, comic style ofBarth, but this should not distract us from the fact that Todd, despite hisclaim that he is "not a thinker" (Barth 171), is nothing but a thinker. The study will consider the ways the protagonists in thesenovels deal with reality, life, death and suicide. The day grows darker and darker, and suddenly it's night. He saw [his long- dead wife] in her last illness reaching to touch his cheek, saying Oh James, James, forgiving him. He has blasted hissister's television for reasons which essentially comprise his views onlife. Henry, onthe other hand, deals with reality as if it were a game played by a child,even a grown-up child: Even as an adult, one continues, like a child, to believe that when someone dies it's some kind of trick, that death isn't entirely death, that they are in the box and not in the box, that they are somehow capable of jumping out from behind the door and crying, "Had you fooled!" (Roth 252). He is acomic character who lives in his head, and so trapped is he in his head andhis absurd outlook that he is on the verge of suicide. . It may well be that the horrible death of his son, and his own role inthat death, changed him, made him soften his views on life and death at tosome degree. . (Gardner 427-428). . Atthe same time, his thoughts are limited to that absurdist context. vipers upon the earth, those panderers to lust, and their programs were blasphemy and high treason (Gardner 3-4). . If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.