The Go Between and Spies

THE main CHARACTERS IN THE GO-BETWEEN AND SPIES ARE SOCIALLY OPRRESSED ARE SOCIALLY OPPRESSSED How far do you agree with this assertion? Social Oppression is a main theme explored through fall out the devil tragic novels, The Go-Between and Spies. passim the novels, L. P. Hartley and Michael Frayn success in full convey the idea, through the use of their main characters, the effects of social oppression and class divide. development gentlem whatever techniques they show how class and oppression had power everywhere the people of the Victorian era.And plain after contendd(prenominal) the turn of the century, People were in time trapped in the shadows of the past era. Both novels ar told as flashbacks victorious us through the lives of two main protagonists. The climax of twain novels lead to the death of two antheral characters due to oppression. This gives us the idea that men were under greater pressure from social oppression. Considering, Marian and Ted atomic numbe r 18 caught to mishandleher two bodies moving care one in the squalid out hall but to date still Ted takes his life. king of beasts, beacutely assured of social inferiority swings to the extreme opposite as he aspires to be a member of the hall. social lion, a foreigner in the world of emotions, a character so inventive and sensitive gets invited into the world of Brandham hall in the summer of 1900. With Marcus thinking he was like them from the sophisti drawed weighty of his home Court Place. He sees himself as lower class and a mere earthborn among gods and goddesses. He characterises the members of the hall as figures of the zodiac. Marian is the virgin of the zodiac pure and innocent. To him she is the key to the whole pattern, the climax, the coping-stone, the goddess. Heinsisted on thinking of them as angels no matter what because they belonged to the zodiac. social lion, aware of the social difference, feels like a misfit among these smart blue people. He is determ ined to maintain his class a secret up to now though Mrs Maudsley had the susceptibility to fix you like a pinned butterfly with her gaze. He overlooks the authentic care of his own mystify and comments that she would be socially unaccept open she would make a bloomer and prepares to bear the humiliation by himself. social lion beingness so juvenile, had no experience of the events and situation around them. This wish of familiarity and naivety makes him anomic in a sophisticated world of adults and he finds his way to destruction.Leo, with the weather defying him, after he learns from Marcus that single cads wear their school garments in the holidays. He starts to think of clothes as badges of social office and takes an offer from Marian to take him to Norwich tomorrow and get him a new outfit. This makes more highly aware of his social inferiority as he has solo fifteen shillings and eight pence half penny as she adds that doesnt matter, weve got some. This opens w ay for Marian to take advant come on of Leos malleability and he becomes Mercury for Ted and Marian as he gets involved with the extracurricular make out affair.Leo admits hes a super snob and this snobbish, naive and bigoted character failed to allow him realise the danger of his work until its rather too late and the harm is already done. He fails to realise what spooning is due to his wishing of knowledge he could only have the thought of Ted Burgees as her spooning explodener. He gets a green suit and a green bike as Marian mat up green is his true colour and is called a usurer. After all these he still fails to realise hes been mocked but rather still seeks for adventure thinking of himself as a figure of fun. The disastrous ending is caused by Leos naivety and lack of knowledge.He fails to realise the trauma happening around him until it leads to the death of Ted after the virgin and the water carrier are caught together two bodies moving like one. Unlike Leo, who Marcus his friend is nice too, Stephen suffers a worsened oppression as hes manipulated and pressured by his own friend his age Keith. desire Leo he feels like a misfit everywhere as he comments that he doesnt quite fit with the pigtailed Geest girls and the oil colour stained Avery boys, but he however still aspires to be part of the clan like Leo bus still acknowledges and accepts the fact that he never will.Unlike Leo, Stephens low class was know to everyone and he couldnt even dare to keep it a secret. He was the otherwise ranks and unlike Leo, although he felt the class difference he was still grateful to be so. He went to a different school completely from Keith with uniforms socially coded for ease of reference. He lived in a semi-detached house attached to the pinchers making the whole situation even more shameful. While his friend Keith lived in a house with white wicket gates with a neat red brick path that curves through rose beds.He felt like he wasnt even worthy of the Ha ywards as he says The Haywards were perfect and yet they tolerated him and Mrs Haywards incomprehensible niceness. Stephen like Leo, has the colour green associated with them as Stephen admits everything some me was manifestly green. Stephen didnt dare to go against Keiths orders as Keith was the leader and he was the led. Stephens scent of social inferiority to Keith allows Keith to dominate and intimidate Keiths life as Stephen sees Keith as the first in a whole serial publication of dominant figures whose disciple I became.Stephen sees himself as the undersized boy with the teapot ears adjacent his powerful friend open mouthed and credulous. Stephen is much more different from Leo as he doesnt hide who he is and isnt ashamed of who he is. Both boys however are associated with symbols. Stephen is associated with the Privet as Leo is associated with Mercury. Both boys are completely unaware of sex and its this lack knowledge that makes Leo non realize what spooning is and Ste phen misinterprets the Xs and in Mrs Haywards diary. Both boys become messengers for illicit love affairs and dont realise what theyre been used for. be naive and snobbish like Leo, Keith fails to realize the humans descent between Uncle slit and Mrs Hayward. He doesnt realize why a man will be in the barns. This naivety prevents him from realising Mrs Hayward may have gone into the barns even as he says theres only one way to go and thats left(a), if you go right it leads to the tracks. He doesnt think Mrs Hayward for one minute will go into the tracks. When they realize Mrs Hayward might have go into a house in the lanes, he says they couldnt pursue their project Germans we might be able to deal with, these people we certainly quartert.He didnt realise he was German and even detested the thought a German as it was during the war time and being German in Britain at that point would be a sign of betrayal and a huge deal. Both boys intemperately affected by class, and sexual awakening lead them to events that affect them throughout their lives and see the need to even out their past with their future as Leo says the facts of life were a mystery story to me. Their lack of knowledge deposet be totally blamed on them but rather the times and conditions they lived in.They lived in a society where even girls could grow into women and not know where children were given birth to from or know what awaited them on their nuptials night. Children were forbidden to know nor talk about Sex. They were not allowed to know a lot of things. It was like a society with an adult world and a childrens one because knowledge in the society then, was a package unite with loss of innocence. Just like Stephen begins to know more and starts seeing the path ahead as darker tunnels and no longer remote blue horizons.However, this lack of knowledge leaves both boys lives in a complete rupture especially that of Leo. The Climax of the novel, leaves Leo like a train going through a series of tunnels sometimes in the dark not knowing. He lives with himself thinking he was responsible for the death of Ted Burgees as he comments that the tidings of Teds suicide came to me voicelessly as he preoccupied him. He lives thinking in destroying the belladonna he had besides destroyed Ted and perhaps destroyed himself. He was left a lonely man sitting alone in a drab flowerless room.While Stefan was left with a marriage that was never quite a real marriage. With worse troubles than anyones ever had before. He thinks he was responsible for the death of Uncle peter as he struggles to figure out where he belonged. Hartley used the social structure of his main protagonist Leo, who admits that he had destroyed Ted as a vehicle for expressing the power of the class structure over the societys actions with Ted serving as the scape goat barb himself after the findings of Mrs Maudsley in the outhouses to avoid the societal disgrace and spare Marian the embarrassment.Ted was loaded by his lack of social status as Denys doesnt fail to say we dont know him socially of course and his lack of capital as he rents his land from Lord Trimingham. Hartley makes reference to the class kitchen stove in the society using the multiform sub-textual elements of the interaction between the main characters especially with he relationship between Marian Maudsley and Ted Burges . Marian states that Ted and I were lovers their love was a beautiful thing but yet they couldnt be together due to the distinction in their social class and her expectations to sweep up an aristocrat.The villagers honor them and feel if it wasnt for the difference what a handsome pair theyll make. Ted Burgees isnt ashamed to furcate anyone about his low class as he admits to Leo Im a chassis friend of hers but doesnt hesitate to say but not the sort she goes about with. However, he feels insecure about it and looks at himself critically all over and even Leo notices that the more clothes he put on, the less he looked himself. Ted seemed to have been a comfortable man before any illicit love affair with Marian as the villagers see his change as a emergent one and ask whats come over Ted? To be shy with ladies? This implies he was a dames man and was content with his farm life as he admits Im not what you call a gentle-man farmer. Trimingham, on the other hand, was a Lord whose clothes, unlike Teds, seem to be a part of him. Hes an aristocrat and a gentle-man who teaches Leo nothing is ever a ladys fault. Unlike Ted, he had an ambiguous social position as he was penniless yet his aristocracy strengthened his social status and was seen as an emblem of the golden age.Trimingham however, despite all these odds, was oppressed by his lack of money and the defects of his face from the Boer war. He was awful ugly and we learn from Marcus that he doesnt like you to feel sorry for him. Hartley contrasts his hideous sick wrought scar that ran from his eye to the corner of h is mouth with the image of war making him a hero with a background of the hospital and battlefield. Trimingham is the gentle, chivalrous representative of a dying tradition, bearing the scars of an impersonal war.A complex symbol, he is two-sided, like Janus, like the war, conflict and suffering for which in some ways he standsentities which can be evil, the case of passion and pride and the fear of losing face, but which can also be good, the nurturer of strength, humility, self-discipline, compassion, the gaiety having the background of hospital and battle-field. Hugh is two-sided like the traditions of the British nobility, like the blind-in-one-eye chivalry which insists that nothing can ever be a ladys fault, like the patriotism which sends soldiers off to kill the Boer, whos not a bad feller but who happens to be the present target.When Leo first sees Trimingham he immediately concludes itll be impossible to like him and so doesnt expect Marian to marry him after he learns fr om Marcus that Mama wants Marian to marry him. His lack of money makes him still go forward to marry Marian even after the virgin and the water-carrier are caught together, two bodies moving like one. Marian still becomes Lady Trimingham. He was so deeply oppressed that even Leo comments that His life could never have been a good life.He was a respectable man from a family of aristocracy, yet had no money pushing him to still marry a woman who had become a figure of shame to get himself some money. Also because of his strong belief that nothing was ever a ladys fault Uncle ray on the other hand, whos very absence, was a kind of presence was a man with no status in the society living beyond the edges of civilisation but his presence lied in the glory of Uncle Peter a RAF pilot meant to be flying bombing missions over Germany.War plays a role in both novels as Frayn and Hartley use Uncle Peter and Trimingham to further show the effects of war on societal men. In Uncle Peters case how ever, it led to his destruction and the end of his life. It was his major source of oppression as he now had to live in the lowest of the lowest, the Barns. Unlike Trimingham whos still fully revere and idealised even much more after the war, we cant say the same(p) about Uncle Peter.Indeed he was idolised and his iconic status still remains with Auntie Dee, as Stephen tells us the messiness of their house glowed with a kind of sacred light, like a saint and his attributes in a phantasmal painting. This image is a different man from the man in the barns who is now that low in the table of human precedence. This painting is nothing close to that of war hero. As the narrator unveils the mystery we find out he has betrayed his country, decrepit his duties under the claim youre up there in the darkness five hundred miles away from home and suddenly the darkness is in you as rise.The man at the Barns and Uncle Peter are two different beings. One is a desperate, sick broken, deserted individual and the other whose bird of Jove on his hat spreading its gilt wings protectively over the children of the Close. Should Uncle Peter have tried to rejoin the society, he would have brought shame and disgrace upon his family as Uncle Peters iconic status was what reflected on Auntie Dee as even their untidy house glowed with a kind of panicked light, like a saint and his attributes in a religious painting. He is oppressed by the war effects and love as Trimingham and Ted.In his own case, he has married the wrong sister and at the same time gone from being a hero, to a man that low in the table of human precedence. He has nothing to offer the woman he loves like Ted who has nothing to offer Marian other than love. He has but a map with the one word Forever. He lives with images of the war fully fresh in his head saying you cant think, you cant move, Everythings drowned by this great scream of terror in the darkness as he struggles to close his mind to the memory by using s econd person, refusing to acknowledge them as his own experience.Like Leo is traumatised by the death of Ted, as he claims the tidings of Teds suicide came to me voicelessly, and haunted me, Uncle Peter lives with the trauma of the war and describes it as blood-red velvet in the crown above the eagle. He describes his plight and says it gets a bit leak, lying here and likens himself to a dicky engine. Uncle Peter deeply oppressed by the war, explains his plight to Stephen saying you start playing some game, and youre the chivalrous one, youre the great hero,But the games goes on and on, and it gets more and frightening and unfortunately for Uncle Peter the end result is death.His death remains ambiguous as we cant ascertain if he killed himself like Ted, or if he was killed or perhaps had an accident. Marian Maudsley a beautiful godess from Brandham hall an upper middle classed family in late-Victorian England with her hair bright with sunshine and pale rose-pink face. She has so m any social expectations from both her family and the society. Best of all shes judge to make a good marriage. It was like she was the climax, the key to the whole pattern. She was in the middle of a cross battle with her emotions.Torn between the man she must(prenominal) marry to give her and her family the aristocracy they desire and the man who she shared a beautiful thing and believed were do for each other. Marian was tough like her generate as they were like two steel threads crossing each other, but her face reflected all the misery she had been going through. She was oppressed by her social class and expectations, her Love for Ted and like her mother, shes expected to be a good hostess, moral, and keep her emotions and family under control by marrying Trimingham.However, Marian is a very deceptive character as she lies to her mother on her seeing someone in Norwich as she hurriedly said Not a cat we were with child(p) at it all the time. She also thinks she can marry Tr imingham and carry on with her affair with Ted. Being the virgin of the zodiac, associated with the Attropa Belladonna. She was a beautiful creature yet poisonous. So was the Attropa Belladonna as leo says I knew that every part of it was poisonous, but I knew that it was beautiful. Marian was a cruel and heartless character to an extent.She was a snob as Leo towards Trimingham on several occasions. She knew fully well there was no future for her and Ted and is fully aware she must marry Trimingham. She says to Leo I cant when Leo asks her why she cant marry Ted and admits to him that She must marry Trimingham. Shes a selfish character, as Ted has scarified all he has for her, he rents his farm from Trimingham and knows he can liberal it and is willing to take that risk. She however, takes no serios risk as she has her eyes set on aristocracy.She lures him into deceit which leaves the materialisation man dead and she ends up as Lady Trimingham. She uses Leo as the Go-Between betw een her and Ted and still calls the young boy names like shylock, she tells her brother Marcus that green is a suitable color for Leo. She takes advantage of the love Trimingham has for her as she threatens that she wont marry him if Ted goes and is willing to go as far as saying that Blackmails a game two can play at. Marian sees Teds suicide as weakness and tells Leo Ted is as weak as water.Marian is sometimes nice to Leo, ut however, all her niceness towards him always had a theme behind it. She takes him to Norwich so she can get the chance to see Ted, she buys him a bicycle to make the heart and soul delivery faster between her and Ted. However, it could be argued that it was all out of frustration. Her eyes showed that she couldnt trust herself to speak, and had a hard bed to lay on. Marian Maudsley was the climax of the whole story. She was responsible for Teds death and the calamity that befell Leo. She was still selfish even at old age not to admit to her faults.She conti nued to live in her self-deception and somehow made herself believe she was still a popular important figure in the hall telling Leo People come in shoals I almost have to turn them from the door Everyone knows about me. Her grandson is left to suffer the consequences of her actions. Michael Frayn uses imagery, metaphor, and irony to present Mrs. Hayward in different ways. Through these techniques, Frayn dramatically and beautifully contrasts Mrs. Haywards calm, composed bearing at the start of the novel with her serious, emotionally distraught side. Mrs.Hayward who is introduced with the six letters My mother is a German Spy, a character of grace and serenity always cheerful. Shes presented as an elegant and respectable character like Mrs. Maudsley and Marian who are under pressure but cant show it. She was almost a perfect being to the extent that even her chickens lived irreproachably elegant lives, parading haughtily about a spacious kingdom. However, Mrs. Hayward was oppressed by her social expectations to always keep a high chin and her house in order and It becomes part of her to conceal her true nature . Also by her husband Mr.Hayward whose character is a bully inflicting pain on his wife that even in the heat of summer she still wears a cravat pinned high around her neck. It can be argued she did this to hide the bruises inflicted on her by her violent husband Mrs. Hayward cant leave her marriage because once she got married to mr. Hayward, being in that period, all her rights , properties and even her identity ceased to exist. By law she was under the complete and total control of her husband. Mr. Hayward carefully watches is wife and this is why she has to send Stephen to carry a message to Uncle Peter.A woman was Barred by law and custom from entering trades and professions by which they could support themselves, and restricted in the possession of property, woman had only one means of livelihood, that of marriage. She keeps a diary with Xs and s representing her period and sex life. We know she has a distant relationship with her husband, and seems vaguely scared of him, so who shes having sex with is untold. Later on, we see she has Uncle Peter in her bosom perhaps the Xs indicated his reciprocated love. Like Marian, she cant be with the man she loves.