For this question we have 2 likely candidates. We have Carwin, the wise yet mysterious man whom Clara has become acquainted with, and we have Pleyel, Clara and her brother’s friend whom she has spent most of the novel with. Upon first seeing Carwin walking, Clara assumes based on his dress and his gait that he “had none of that gracefulness and ease which distinguish a person with certain advantages of education from a clown.” (pg 57) However, when she actually becomes acquainted with him, she realizes she had misjudged him and quickly realizes he is much more eloquent and intelligent than what she took him for initially. After being in his presence at her and her brother’s home several times she beings to display feelings of affection for him. Her feelings of affection slowly begin to dissipate as she beings to question his intentions in his continued presence. It is at this point that I feel that Clara begins to subconsciously acknowledge Carwin’s ill intentions, however her feelings of affection, balancing on the edge of infatuation, inhibit her ability to fully recognize this.
Pleyel then begins to tease his friend and insinuate she is in love with Carwin. She denies this but is upset by the fact that it does seem to bother Pleyel that she is in love with someone besides him. When Clara says “ That the belief of my having bestowed my heart upon another, produced in my friend none but ludicrous sensations, was the true cause of my distress; but if this has been discovered by him, my distress would have been unspeakable aggravated.”(pg 80) is when I feel the audience sees for the first time that Clara is in love with Pleyel. Without going into too much detail about the happenings between Clara, Carwin, and Pleyel later in the novel, I feel that it is safe to say that Clara is indeed in love with Pleyel.
I have to agree with you that Clara is indeed in love with Pleyel. I believe that this is evident, not only in the passages that you have listed above, but also on pages 90 and 91. It is here that she reveals her hopes and dreams for her relationship with Pleyel. She goes on to reveal her fantasy of Pleyel professing his love for her. "If suitable encouragement be given, Pleyel will reveal his soul to me; and I, ere I reach this threshold will be made the happiest of beings." (pg 90) She also seems to have an idea of the perfect weather conditions, where on page 90 she talks about how the wind will be perfect and how the moon will be high in the sky for their meeting. I find this to be similar to the feelings we girls experience when we are in love. We think about the perfect marriage proposal, the ceremony, and sometimes even children (at least I have at some point :])
ReplyDeleteWith respect to Carwin, I feel that there is more infatuation than love. She particularly admires his eloquent ideas and ways in which he delvers them, commenting that they are "constructed with much skill and rehearesed with so much energy that all the effects of a dramatic exhibition were frequently produced by them." (pg 85) I believe that she is more in love with his diction than his other characteristics.
For me, this admiration begins to fade as she begins to feel increasingly threatened by his presence. In contrast, Clara seeks out Pleyel after he curses her and calls her names in his rant on pages 116 to 119 after hearing Carwin and Clara's voices (supposedly). In my opinion, to continuously seek forgiveness and understanding from a person who curses you every time they lay eyes on you is done so because of love. If Clara had no romantic feelings for him, I do not think his perception of her would matter as much.
I think that even looking at Carwin as a likely candidate for the role of Clara's love interest is a fairly narrow reading of the text. From her first encounter with him, she acknowledges his unique skills as an orator and his superior intelligence, but her interest manifests much more as a fascination than it does as romantic love.
ReplyDeleteFrom a religious point of view, the first encounter between Carwin and Clara could be paralleled to that between the Serpent and Eve. Genesis 3 describes the serpent as "more crafty than any of the other wild animals the Lord God had made," and the serpent uses his craftiness to tempt Eve into eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Clara describes Carwin's speech by saying that "the emphasis was so just, and the modulation so impassioned, that it seemed as if an heart of stone could not fail to be moved by it", and describes "the degree to which force and sweetness were blended in them" (59). Neither of these descriptions imply a romantic attraction more than they do a satanic temptation. The "blend of force and sweetness" could be seen as a description of craftiness in speech not unlike that of the Serpent, and Carwin's power to move a heart of stone could be paralleled to the Serpent's persuasive powers over Eve.
On the other hand, Clara explains her feelings toward Pleyel very differently. Rather than only citing one major instance in which she was overcome by some ambiguous emotion, she discusses her lifelong dreams and elaborate plans that will lead to her engagement and ultimate marriage to Pleyel, describing her hopes that on a particular evening Pleyel will "reveal his soul to [her]" (90). Clara never mentions any desire for an engagement to Carwin, or even suggests that the thought has crossed her mind. In contrasting her description of her intentions with Pleyel to her emotional reaction to Carwin, we can see that the former is clearly romantic love, while the latter only manifests as some vague, although powerful, emotion.
Granted, we cannot analyze Weiland without considering that Clara is telling the entire story retrospectively. In effect, this gives her the ability to rewrite the story to suit herself. Evidently, one major area in which she would have had sufficient motivation to do so is in her description of her feelings toward Carwin. However, if removing any suggestion that she was in love with Carwin were her intention, it would seem logical that she remove all mention of her emotional response to her first encounter with him. At the beginning of Chapter 6, Clara clearly struggles to tell Carwin's story in an unbiased mode rather than one overwhelmed by her hatred toward him. However, it seems that she succeeds in "recovering a sober strain" and "[tearing herself] from contemplation of the evils of which it is but too certain that [Carwin] was the author" (57) and giving an unbiased versions of the events. It seems unlikely, therefore, that Clara has intentions of masking her feelings for Carwin, as she expresses them very clearly in her description of their first encounter; the problem, therefore, is not that Clara hides her romantic feelings toward Carwin, but that they simply do not exist.
Note: please excuse the tardiness of my post; my computer was having trouble accessing the blog earlier today.
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