Travesties: Analysis of Major Characters
"Travesties: Analysis of Major Characters" explores the intricate relationships and ideologies of several historical and fictional figures during a tumultuous period marked by World War I. The central character, Henry Carr, serves as both a youthful participant in the events and an elderly narrator reflecting on his past. Carr's interactions with James Joyce, a renowned but disheveled author working on "Ulysses," highlight debates on the nature of art and its relevance to history. Joyce argues that art exists independently and shapes historical meaning, while Tristan Tzara, a Dadaist artist, promotes the idea that art is born from chance, illustrated by his whimsical destruction of a Shakespearean sonnet. Vladimir Ilich Lenin embodies a more pragmatic approach, viewing art as a tool for societal change. Romantic entanglements complicate the narrative, particularly involving Gwendolen and Cecily, who both navigate mistaken identities and aspirations tied to their affections. Overall, the characters represent diverse artistic and political ideologies, engaging in dialogues that reflect the complexities of their time.
Travesties: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Tom Stoppard
First published: 1975
Genre: Play
Locale: Zurich, Switzerland
Plot: Play of ideas
Time: 1917–1918 and the 1970's
Henry Carr, an elegantly attired character who appears both as a very old man and as his youthful self. The character is modeled on a minor official by the same name who was in the English consulate in Switzerland during the turbulent years of World War I. The events of the play mirror history. As young Carr, this character is involved in a quarrel with James Joyce over money for clothes in a production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest,inwhichJoyceis closely involved. As an old man, Carr narrates the events of the time, and it is his erratic recall of events through which the playwright filters the events of the play, including a fictional meeting in the Zurich library among Tristan Tzara, James Joyce, and Vladimir Ilich Lenin.
James Joyce, an inelegant dresser, thirty-six years old, who mixes jackets and trousers from two different suits. At work in the Zurich library on his famous novel Ulysses,hecomes in conflict with Tzara and Lenin on the nature of art. As the play's raisonneur, he argues that art is its own excuse for being and that whatever meaning is to be found in history is what art makes of it. He uses Homer's poems about the Trojan War to illustrate his theory that art re-creates the shards of history into a “corpse that will dance for some time yet and leave the world precisely as it finds it.”
Tristan Tzara, a Romanian Dadaist artist. He is short, dark-haired, charming, and boyish, and he wears a monocle. He argues his theories of history and art as pure chance. In demonstration, he tears up a sonnet by William Shakespeare, letting the words fall where they will, in the process arranging themselves into a new poem. Tzara is in love with Gwendolen, and, despite a mix-up of names and identities that parallels the plot of The Importance of Being Earnest,he does end up with her. His role unites the two major plot components: the debates on art and the romantic intrigues.
Vladimir Ilich Lenin, a forty-seven-year-old revolutionary. Writing in the Zurich library, he sees art as a means to change the world for the good of the masses. In contrast with the brilliantly parodic language of Tzara and Joyce, that of Lenin is pedestrian and pedantic.
Gwendolen, the attractive younger sister of Carr. She is secretary to Joyce but in love with Tzara. With Cecily, she forms the double romantic interest in the plot. Their mix-up of briefcases causes Joyce's latest chapter of Ulysses to fall into the hands of Tzara and Lenin's political treatise to come into Joyce's possession, thus creating occasions for romantic complications, as well as for Tzara to criticize Joyce and for Carr to impress Cecily with his pretended admiration of Lenin's views.
Cecily, a young, attractive librarian who appears also as her eighty-year-old self. She is deeply devoted to Lenin's philosophy and is in love with Carr. With Gwendolen, she falls farcically into and out of the mistaken-identity confusion, eventually ending up with her Algernon, Henry Carr.
Nadya (Nadezhda) Krupskaya, the forty-eight-year-old wife of Lenin, a minor character in the play who converses with Lenin about their impending journey to Russia.