Gargoyles: Analysis of Major Characters
"Gargoyles: Analysis of Major Characters" delves into the profound themes of alienation, solitude, and the human condition, as depicted through its central characters. The narrative follows a student who grapples with his estranged family and the heavy burden of his mother's early death and his sister's mental struggles. Accompanying his father, a dedicated but emotionally distant doctor, on medical rounds, the student encounters a series of patients whose suffering reflects broader existential crises, culminating in the haunting presence of Prince Saurau, a profoundly isolated and insane figure. Each character, from the doctor to the prince, embodies isolation and the inability to connect, illustrating the pervasive sadness that permeates their lives. The interactions reveal the disconnection between the characters, notably the strained father-son relationship, emphasizing the universal nature of despair and the limits of medical understanding. Additionally, supporting characters like the murdered innkeeper's wife and the troubled industrialist further highlight the themes of loss and the futility of attempting to escape death and decay. This analysis provides valuable insights into the complexities of human experience, addressing how deeply personal struggles resonate across different lives and circumstances.
Gargoyles: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Thomas Bernhard
First published: Verstörung, 1967 (English translation, 1970)
Genre: Novel
Locale: The Austrian Alps
Plot: Psychological realism
Time: After World War I
The narrator, a student home for the weekend. The narrator is surrounded by derangement (the meaning of the original German title) and death both at school, where the students suffer fits of suicidal melancholy, and at home, where his mother died an early and inexplicable death some time before and his sister frequently attempts suicide. His life is one of almost total estrangement and solitude, again both at school, where he has severed all relations with colleagues so as to progress with his scientific studies, and at home, where there is little if any communication among the narrator, his father, and his sister. The narrator has written a long letter to his father about their problematic familial relations, and he hopes to be able to discuss this letter with his father while home; however, the father, who is a doctor, receives an emergency call. The narrator accompanies his father on his rounds and is exposed to a series of increasingly insane and diseased patients, culminating in the visit to Prince Saurau. The rounds provide a type of disquieting response to the narrator's letter. His questioning of, and even attempt to halt, the natural process of disintegration and decay through science is proven useless. Alienation, solitude, and death are revealed to be universally human conditions that even the science of medicine cannot reverse. The objectivity and distance with which the narrator initially relates the day's events eventually are replaced by involvement and perhaps even obsession as the narrator loses himself within the prince's monologue and narrates page after page of his disjointed ramblings.
The doctor, the narrator's father. Well known and dedicated, the doctor spends twenty-two-hour days seeing to the needs of his patients but heals not a single one of them. After years ofworkinginanareamarkedbycasesofinsanityandbrutality, the doctor has come to the conclusion “that everything is fundamentally sick and sad.” The early death of his wife has forced him to acknowledge death as a fact of nature. During his rounds, the doctor conveys little emotion and seems distanced from the misery around him. He lives in a solitude broken only by a weekly visit to a broker friend. His relationship to his children is weak and worsening. In particular, the doctor worries about his extremely withdrawn, fearful, and sensitive daughter. The fact that he does not worry about his son, oblivious to the narrator's decreasing ability to resolve or at least repress problems in his studies, indicates how little the father knows his son. The doctor is unable to open his heart to either son or daughter, although at times, usually in the presence of a third person, he can speak of them with seeming emotion and concern.
Prince Saurau (SOW-row), the landlord of Hochgobernitz. Incurably insane, the prince, who is the final and by far most important patient seen by the doctor, epitomizes many of the human traits introduced in prior patient visits. Of all the patients, the prince suffers from the highest degree of disease and mental confusion. The isolation characteristic of the narrator, the doctor, and all the doctor's patients is absolute in the prince, who lives high atop a mountain. The only visitor received is the doctor, and although the prince lives in Hochgobernitz with his two sisters and two daughters, he describes the distance between them as being hundreds of thousands of miles, so far that they can no longer hear one another. The prince's alienation from his family has developed into a hatred of all society and of the Austrian state. The relationship between the prince and his son approximates that between the doctor and the narrator. Both sons are pursuing scientific studies away from home, and both their courses of study preclude friends of any kind. The prince, similar to the doctor, knows very little of his son, who only writes when in need of money and who intends to undo his father's work and destroy Hochgobernitz.
Woman from Gradenberg, an innkeeper's wife who is brutally and senselessly murdered, precipitating the emergency call that prevents the anticipated discussion between father and son.
Bloch (blohkh), a real estate broker. Jewish, with exquisite taste and suffering from terrible headaches and insomnia, Bloch is the doctor's only friend.
Frau Ebenhöh (frow AY-behn-heh), a widow soon to die. Like the prince, she is afraid that her mentally backward son will sell her home and possessions after her death.
The industrialist, who is retired and suffering from diabetes. Described as not yet mad, the industrialist is working on a philosophical manuscript that he creates and destroys anew every day. To prevent distractions from this work, his lodge and grounds have been emptied of everything, including pictures, books, people, and even the forest game.
Teacher von Salla, a country schoolteacher fired for having engaged in sexual relations with a pupil. After serving his jail sentence, the teacher developed an astonishing gift for pen drawings expressing the grotesque, demoniac, and self-destructive forward momentum of human existence. The teacher died in the doctor's presence.
The miller, who suffers from a gangrenous leg ulceration and is bedridden with his wife, who is suffering from water on the feet. Their two sons and a Turkish worker are in the process of killing all the exotic birds housed in an aviary behind the mill because of the birds' unrelenting screeching since the death of their owner, the miller's brother. All the inhabitants of the mill are feebleminded.
Krainer (KRI-nuhr), the disabled and insane son of upstanding parents who work on the Saurau estate. Formerly a gifted musician, Krainer can no longer speak intelligibly and has become so dangerous that he must be restrained by a cagelike covering over his bed. Krainer and his sister, the sole person who still cares for him, remind the doctor of his own son and daughter.