Outerbridge Reach: Analysis of Major Characters
**Overview of "Outerbridge Reach: Analysis of Major Characters"**
"Outerbridge Reach" explores the complex lives of its major characters against the backdrop of a tumultuous sea voyage that symbolizes broader themes of failure, courage, and redemption. Owen Browne, a middle-aged former naval officer, embarks on a perilous solo sailing race in an attempt to revive his career and find personal meaning after experiencing a midlife crisis. Throughout his journey, he grapples with his past, particularly the unresolved trauma from the Vietnam War, which ultimately leads him to a state of madness and despair.
His wife, Anne Browne, faces her own struggles, succumbing to alcoholism and infidelity during Owen's absence. However, she eventually seeks to reclaim her life and confront her husband's legacy through her own sailing venture, armed with greater skill and resolve. Ron Strickland, a cynical photographer and Vietnam protester, becomes entangled in the narrative as he attempts to capture the truth of Owen's journey, only to face obstacles that reflect the corrupting influence of business interests.
Other characters, like Pamela Koester and Buzz Ward, further enrich the narrative, representing the multifaceted impact of societal disillusionment and the quest for meaning. Together, these individuals navigate themes of personal and collective failure, each struggling with their own demons while reflecting on the larger human experience.
Outerbridge Reach: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Robert Stone
First published: 1992
Genre: Novel
Locale: New York City and the South Atlantic Ocean
Plot: Psychological realism
Time: The 1990's
Owen Browne, a middle-aged former naval officer and veteran of the Vietnam War who now writes advertising copy for a subsidiary of a conglomerate known as the Hylan Cor-poration. When its head, Matty Hylan, senses financial ruin and disappears, Owen hopes to boost the sagging fortunes of all concerned by taking his place in a single-handed cir-cumnavigation race using the new Hylan sailboat. He wants to market the boat, but more important, he has been suffering from a midlife crisis that has left him in a state of paralysis and despair. Feeling stalled and restless in his personal life and his job, he has a need to start over. He also hopes to develop a sense of personal courage and heroism that eluded him during the Vietnam War and anticipated that, when tested, he will uncover a commanding self able to cope with the solitude and the sea. He immediately demonstrates his incompetence, however, by making poor preparations and by failing to realize that the Hylan craft is an untested boat, made of inferior materials, that cannot weather the voyage he is about to undertake. To add to his troubles, an accidental cut to his hand becomes seriously infected, contributing to his increasingly hallucinatory consciousness. As he sails further out to sea, he becomes increasingly preoccupied with his interior life, breaking off communication with anyone from the outside world. Losing his bearings, he reaches an island that represents his distance from all previous realities. Delirious, he mistakes a nest of crabs in an old house for a new wife and drifts beyond the limits of sanity. In a fit of megalomania, he charts a course to victory covered with false positions and upbeat commentary, arbitrarily imposing his own fantasies on reality. In reality, he is beset by a strong sense of failure, fear, and helplessness. The pretense that he has won the race seems to cap a lifetime of fakery and self-deception, but he is unable to face up to the fact that he has disseminated so much false information. His failure to become a hero becomes a replication of the defeat associated with the Vietnam War. Owen seems condemned to replay the disillusionments and failures of that war. Unlike his fellow veteran Buzz Ward, his ordeal does not end in his development of redeeming spiritual values. He does not come through with flying colors; instead he sinks into madness, drowning alone in the South Atlantic Ocean.
Anne Browne, Owen's wife and the daughter of a wealthy businessman. With Owen on his foolhardy sea voyage and their daughter Maggie acting up, Anne sinks into an alcoholic haze. She betrays her husband by having an affair with Ron Strickland, then betrays Strickland by undermining his ability to report what really happened to Owen. In spite of these dubious actions, Anne's intelligence and sanity permit her to emerge as the least damaged by the entire situation. After Owen's death, she comes into her own and decides to atone for Brown's disastrous voyage by setting out on a similar voyage herself. Because she is the better sailor and has seen to it that her craft is sound, she anticipates that she will successfully meet the physical and spiritual challenges that destroyed her husband.
Ron Strickland, a cynical photographer. He sees himself as a member of the counterculture that protested against the war in Vietnam, experimented with drugs and sexual freedom, and advocated various left-wing causes. His life seems less heroic to him, however, as events he is covering in Nicaragua begin to dwindle into inanition. Returning to the United States to revive his sagging morale by covering the Owen Browne voyage, he becomes convinced that he is the only one involved in the situation who cares about the truth. His effort to make a film that will give the real story to the American public is undermined by business interests associated with Anne's wealthy father. Hired thugs beat him severely, ruin his film, and leave him in despair.
Pamela Koester, a drug-addled former prostitute, who is befriended by Strickland. She represents a counterculture gone sour and now barely distinguishable from the country's criminal underworld.
Buzz Ward, a naval buddy of Owen who was imprisoned in Vietnam during the war. Owen hopes to emulate his courage and spirituality.
Maggie Browne, Owen's troubled teenager daughter. It is she who will ultimately inherit whatever successes or failures her parents' generation bring about.