Concluding: Analysis of Major Characters
The topic of "Concluding: Analysis of Major Characters" delves into the intricate dynamics within a narrative centered on various characters associated with a state school for girls. The central figure, Mr. Rock, is a 76-year-old man with a rich scientific background, now facing the challenges of age while caring for his granddaughter Elizabeth, who is navigating personal turmoil. The narrative also highlights Miss Mabel Edge and Miss Hermione Baker, the school principals, whose conflicting ambitions create a power struggle that affects the entire institution.
Elizabeth's relationship with her tutor, Sebastian Birt, adds complexity, as their desire to marry clashes with institutional regulations. The mysterious disappearances of students, such as Merode and Mary, introduce themes of vulnerability and the pressures faced by young girls in a rigid environment. The characters interact within a framework that reflects their fears of job security and social norms, showcasing a blend of personal aspirations and institutional constraints. This overview provides insight into the characters’ motivations and the overarching themes of care, control, and concern for the vulnerable, inviting further exploration into their interrelationships and conflicts.
Concluding: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Henry Green
First published: 1948
Genre: Novel
Locale: A government training institute in England
Plot: Satire
Time: Sometime in the future
Mr. Rock, the central character, a seventy-six-year-old man who is white-haired, hard of hearing, and bespectacled. As a young man, he made a great scientific discovery, and now he is being considered for election to the Academy of Sciences. He enjoys living in his cottage on the grounds of a state school for girls with his granddaughter, whom he loves. He is gruffly kind to the schoolgirls who are fond of his pets: a cat, a goose, and a pig. Moira often comes to visit him. Rock is concerned when two of the girls are missing and searches for Mary when others cover up her absence.
Miss Mabel Edge, one of the two principals of the Institute, a state school for girls. Short, thin, and white-haired, with white hands, she schemes to get rid of Rock to have his cottage for a still-to-be hired handyman. Miss Edge is a spinster who angers Miss Marchbanks with her high-handed ways. At a break from the annual dance, Miss Edge, stimulated by cigarettes, indirectly asks Rock to marry her. She is furious when, on the way out, he laughs. Feared by all the staff, Miss Edge has only one friend, Miss Baker.
Miss Hermione Baker, the other principal of the school, a short, fat woman. Like Miss Edge and some of the other bureaucrats, she fears that some complaint will be made against them, and perhaps they will be forced to leave the beautiful estate on which the school is situated. Miss Baker and Miss Edge are colleagues and confederates in the scheme against Rock, but Miss Baker is more restrained and less frantic. She talks often about the farm she knew as a child.
Elizabeth Rock, Rock's thirty-five-year-old granddaughter. She is recovering from a nervous breakdown. She is having an affair with Sebastian Birt and wants to marry him and live with him in her grandfather's cottage. She does not accept the fact that because of state regulations, Sebastian will be reassigned if they marry. Elizabeth will not allow Sebastian to criticize her grandfather, and she will not allow Rock to criticize Sebastian. At the dance, she plasters herself against Sebastian, not realizing how shocking this is to the principals, who call it a display of animalism.
Sebastian Birt, a first-year economics tutor at the school. Fat and very short, he loves Elizabeth. Like all the other adult characters, he is worried about keeping his job, keeping his living quarters, and avoiding the censure of the principals. Sebastian is also loved by Miss Winstanley, another teacher, whom he ignores. He worries that Rock will make trouble, for example by reporting Mary's disappearance to a state bureaucrat, Swaythling.
Moira, one of the senior students. She has strong blue eyes, an apricot neck and face, golden legs, and short, curly hair. She likes to talk to Rock. When Miss Marchbanks thinks she has Merode isolated in a bathroom, Moira talks to her through a ventilator shaft. Moira takes Rock to the girls' secret clubhouse, and she kisses him on the lips, but Rock only wants to get away.
Merode, an orphan at the school. She is missing but is then found in the woods, in her pajamas and coat, with a scratched knee. She cries and will not explain how she got there. Moira tells Rock that the junior girls meet George Adams at night. Merode and her aunt say that she was sleepwalking. When she is found by Sebastian and Elizabeth, she has a white face and painted toenails.
Mary, who usually is a steady girl but is missing the same day as Merode is. Rock and some of the girls fear that she has drowned in the lake. The principals have preferred her as an orderly to wait on them. Mary's divorced parents are in Brazil, and she is substantially alone. The other girls finally conclude that Mary ran away because she was overworked as a waitress and pressured to make good grades in her final exams. At the end of the novel, Mary still has not been found.
George Adams, a woodman whose wife died the previous winter. He thinks that people, including Rock, are scheming to get him out of his cottage. To confound his supposed enemy, he writes an anonymous letter to Miss Edge about the Rock household and “furnicating.” The night of the dance, he gets into a rage when Rock walks by, but he refuses to come out and face Rock.
Miss Maggie Blain, the cook at the school, a woman with green eyes and an enormous bosom. She is kind enough to give Rock breakfast each day and to give him swill for his pig. She is touchy, however, and cannot be pushed. She is concerned about her girls and angry that no one told her that Mary was missing.
Miss Marchbanks, who is left in charge when the principals go to London for a day to attend a meeting. She is kind to Merode when she is found but is unable to get a coherent story from the girl, who faints when she is pressed. Miss Marchbanks tries to put Alice, Rock's Persian cat, on Merode's lap to soothe her, but it does not work. Miss Marchbanks has brown eyes and spectacles. She tries to suggest fir trees as decorations for the dance, but her idea is squashed by the principals, who want everything to remain the same from year to year.
Mrs. Manley, Merode's aunt, a middle-aged woman with a fruity voice. When she arrives at the school, she insists on seeing Merode, which is against the rules. She also suggests that the principals might be at fault in the girl's disappearance. Mrs. Manley insists that Merode was sleepwalking, and, to save themselves trouble, Miss Edge and Miss Baker seem ready to accept that excuse.