I read Carwin's speech on how he is the source of the voices (though not the one's that caused Wieland to go on a murdering rampage) (pg 225-246) and I have to say that I am unimpressed. He was not the super stealthy thief we all thought that he was. On page 230 he admits that he was sleeping with the maid which allowed him to gain access to Clara's home whenever he pleased. He is also not the murdering raping sicko we all thought he was, he just enjoys testing people. Personally, I'm not really sure why he did all the weird things he did. Testing Clara and manipulating the rest of the group is all well and good but I don't see what he gets out of it other than simply the pleasure of knowing he can. Maybe this is reason enough for Carwin.
Regardless, I think that the voices were mainly used by Brown as a plot element to move the story along and are not necessarily supposed to be the main focus of the novel. The novel was originally written based on a true story of a man who murdered his family claiming that God told him too. He felt no remorse as he pleaded guilty in a court of law. Brown simply uses the voices as a means to an end. A reason for Wieland's already unstable mind to be pushed over the edge. After all, if you're going to listen to and believe in one mysterious voice, you might as well believe in all of them.
Personally speaking, I think that Brown could have done better. Earlier, we used the Scooby-Doo parallel to show how supernatural things in mysteries are usually explained in the end by some scientific explanation. However, rather than a man in a mask, some luminescent paint, and a complex pulley system, Brown went with ventriloquism (and spontaneous combustion in the beginning of the novel). Ventriloquism is right up there with David Blaine as far as things that seem supernatural but aren't and I think that in order to truly challenge our belief in the supernatural Brown should have used something that is more simple, plain, and more realistic. The kind of thing where you get to the end of the book and think, "Of course, why didn't I think of that? I can't believe I missed something so simple and obvious. And all this time I thought that it had been a traveling magician or maybe their father's ghost that had been manipulating them."
I agree that the voices were used primarily as a means to propel the plot and purpose of the story. Considering the voices merely as such, the fact that Carwin is discovered to be a biloquist does not, to me, seem like the detail that, for the reader, concludes the conflict and results in the culmination of the story. Since I consider the biloquism to be no more than an interesting side-twist, I was not disappointed in the way the novel ended. For me, the biloquism did just the opposite – rather than neatly explain every supernatural event in the novel, it raises the question of whether or not Carwin is response for all the voices, and if he was not, is there a supernatural element in addition to a natural element?
ReplyDeleteWhen Carwin was first introduced to us, it was simple (and foolish, looking back on it) to accept Clara’s opinions of him as absolutely true. I for one, read the novel suspicious of his intentions and very willing to believe he was entirely responsible. The reader should doubt Clara. As the novel progresses, and Clara becomes less trustworthy, our second opinion of Carwin (that we form upon his confession) should be scrutinized with the same skepticism. We cannot be sure whether the idea of him as a murderer is true, or whether the idea of him as a man with a lust for control is true, or perhaps he is someone else entirely. This is left open ended by Brown.
As I mentioned I don’t see the issue of the voices as central to the real core of the novel; that core, I believe, is the change in character of Wieland and Clara induced by the voices. A significant change was effected in Clara, but as the end of the book draws near it is obvious an even greater change of character has taken hold of Wieland. The change of Wieland is what Brown’s novel is about. Why he changed, what caused him to change, how he was changed, is likewise left open ended by Brown, and with good reason. The change of a man like Wieland from who he was when the novel began to a man capable of what Wieland did, is not so easily answered by anyway, even Brown.