Unholy Loves: Analysis of Major Characters
"Unholy Loves: Analysis of Major Characters" explores a complex web of relationships among faculty members at Woodslee University, highlighting their personal struggles and emotional entanglements. Central to the narrative is Brigit Stott, a novelist grappling with her tumultuous past and the challenges of creativity while navigating a love affair with the charismatic musician Alexis Kessler. The story also features Albert St. Dennis, a revered yet declining poet whose arrival causes turmoil within the English department, culminating in his tragic death. Other significant characters include Oliver Byrne, the ambitious dean with aspirations for higher academic power, and his troubled wife, Marilyn, who struggles with her identity amidst societal pressures. The narrative further delves into the lives of faculty like Lewis Seidel and his emotionally distant wife Faye, as well as the dynamic between them and other academics. Each character is portrayed against the backdrop of ambition, love, despair, and the complexities of human connection, making for a rich, multifaceted exploration of interpersonal relationships in an academic setting. Readers can expect a nuanced portrayal of ambition, heartbreak, and the search for identity in a world rife with expectations and emotional turmoil.
Unholy Loves: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Joyce Carol Oates
First published: 1979
Genre: Novel
Locale: Woodslee, New York
Plot: Stream of consciousness
Time: The 1970's
Brigit Stott, a professor of English and the only novelist at the relatively prestigious Woodslee University, 256 miles north of New York City. Thirty-eight years old, thin, sharp-featured, and attractive in a mysterious way, Brigit has written two novels that have attained minor success, but her current work remains a tumble of notes and sketches. Separated from her abusive husband, whom she married when she was twenty-two years old, she begins an intense love affair with a musician on campus, just when she had hoped to fall in love with the great visiting poet in residence, Albert St. Dennis. Her introspection, self-respect, and overwhelming desire to write novels, however, keep her from destruction in the painful romance; victoriously, she realizes that nothing in her life is inevitable.
Alexis Kessler, a thirty-two-year-old composer and pianist on the faculty at Woodslee University. Blond and beautiful, he has had numerous love affairs with both men and women. He is attracted to the mystery in Brigit and, while they are together, wants to possess her and transform her into a beautiful woman. Most of his peers feel intense animosity toward him, and it is only the dean of humanities' support that allows him to remain on campus. Meretricious and frustrated by an unrealized career, Alexis is pursued by unwarranted scandal and has an almost childlike inability to handle responsibility.
Albert St. Dennis, a seventy-year-old English poet in a one-year residence at Woodslee University. Known as the greatest living English poet, he has recently become a widower and looks and behaves like a confused and feeble old man. At his first poetry reading on campus, he is a critical success. Faculty members covet his attention and seek his opinions and insight, but his comments are often garbled and sententious, even though his career is based on impressive creativity and scholarship. His death, caused by a fire ignited from a cigarette he dropped when he passed out in a drunken stupor on his sofa, brings chaos and disorder to the entire English department.
Oliver Byrne, the attractive dean of humanities. Ambitious and egotistical, he views his current position as a stepping-stone on the path of an extremely successful career in academe. He regularly lists to himself the brilliant victories he has had, the latest and best of which was arranging the yearlong residency of Albert St. Dennis. Considering his wife, at best, to be a necessary inconvenience, he arranges a social life that will lead to the presidency of Woodslee or another major university.
Marilyn Byrne, the troubled wife of Oliver Byrne. She tries to create proper parties and a proper persona, but, as the year progresses, she fails more and more miserably, until she finally seeks divorce and hospitalization.
Warren Hochberg, the chairman of the English department. His one scholarly book, on John Dryden, belongs to the far distant past, and now he seems devoted to his administrative position. A dull man, he operates successfully in academic middle management.
Vivian Hochberg, the attractive and sophisticated wife of Warren Hochberg. Vivian, it is rumored, was in love with another member of the department, Lewis Seidel. For mysterious reasons, the relationship ended, but an emotional intimacy remains between the two of them.
Lewis Seidel, an influential faculty member and sometime rival of Oliver Byrne. Lewis had hoped to resurrect his flagging scholarly reputation with a book about St. Dennis'work. Locked into a loveless marriage, but affable and social, he has liaisons with other women, but he is suffering increasingly from an unnamed pulmonary condition.
Faye Seidel, Lewis' wife, who rightly feels unloved and out of place in the social group in which she is forced to remain.
Gladys Fetler, an older and very popular professor who is forced into retirement though remaining well-liked by students and members of the department, particularly Brigit.
Gowan Vaughan-Jones, the most highly acclaimed critic in the department. He gains the greatest benefits for his career from the visit of Albert St. Dennis. Although eccentric and ingenuous, he is likable and unpretentious.
Leslie Cullendon, a James Joyce scholar who is dying from a mysterious degenerative disease that has forced him into a wheelchair. He is vitriolic, drunken, and insulting to everyone, including his wife; as a result, he is unliked and avoided by all.
Babs Cullendon, the long-suffering wife of Leslie. At parties, she either remains silent or complains of what she must endure in her life with Leslie.
Ernest Jaeger, a twenty-eight-year-old newly hired professor. Hardworking and grateful for his position, he still suffers the anguish associated with possible termination.
Sandra Jaeger, the beautiful, blond, twenty-four-year-old wife of Ernest. At first idealistic about her husband's bright future, she later becomes the lover of Lewis Seidel to combat boredom.