Literary Elements Comparison in Three of the Summer Assigned Works

With this year’s theme of “problematic protagonists,” each of the summer works features a main character whose personality can be found unappealing. In Master Harold and the Boys, Athol Fugard explores themes of racism and segregation in South Africa during the apartheid. Hally, a white boy, has known Sam and Willie, two older African servants, his whole life and has intelligent conversations with Sam as his equal. After discovering that his alcoholic and handicapped father is being discharged from the hospital, Hally lashes out and uses racist remarks against Sam and Willie, thus displaying his rage from tolerating his father in past years. His friendship with the two servants is destroyed and irreparable. Through Nelly Dean’s narration of Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte uses impetuous characters to convey themes of economic and social tension, discrimination, and death. Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff were intimate friends since childhood until she becomes injured at Thrushcross Grange and needs to stay for months to recuperate. Upon her return, Heathcliff can no longer recognize Catherine as she is more refined and will soon marry Edgar Linton. After Catherine dies, leaving behind an infant daughter, Heathcliff continues to retaliate for his mistreatment and loss of his beloved. In the end, Catherine’s daughter, Cathy Linton, happily marries her cousin, Hareton Earnshaw, after Heathcliff joins Catherine in the afterlife. Lastly, in the first novella of Raise the Red Lantern, both possessing the same name, Lotus is the fourth mistress of Chen Zuoqian and is hostile towards the other mistresses and her maidservant, Swallow. Lotus experiences the conflicts between the other mistresses and their children and befriends Feipu. After she insists that Swallow dies from eating a piece of toilet paper for cursing her, she has nightmares that Swallow is resurrected to kill her in her sleep. One night, she witnesses Third Mistress’s demise and becomes traumatized. Eventually, Chen Zuoqian takes up a Fifth Mistress and Lotus is soon forgotten. These three novels share similarities in their literary elements, particularly concerning the antiheroes, themes, point of view, conflict, and setting. Heathcliff is the male lead of Wuthering Heights. By carrying out a despicable revenge plot versus being oppressed by Hindley Earnshaw, Heathcliff sparks ambivalence in readers as they feel contempt and sympathy for him. At times, he displays the characteristics of the romantic hero, specifically the Byronic hero. He is “aristocratic, darkly handsome, manly, brooding, brilliant, erotic, melancholy, indomitable.” (http://personal.georgiasouthern.edu)
First of all, he is a “commanding figure, with strong wills and personalities, who challenge accepted norms of behavior.” (http://personal.georgiasouthern.edu) Distressed when he hears Catherine will not marry him because it would degrade her, Heathcliff flees to mysteriously earn a fortune, showing his persistence to rise from his inferior status. His accomplishment can be compared to that of Napoleon Bonaparte, the epitome of the romantic hero.
Heathcliff follows his own ideals of retribution and impulsivity. His desire to exact revenge on Hindley is seen when he tells Nelly, “‘I’m trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don’t care how long I wait, if I can only do it, at last. I hope he will not die before I do!’... ‘No, God won’t have the satisfaction that I shall... I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I’ll plan it out; while I’m thinking of that, I don’t feel pain.’” (Bronte 69)
Through these traits of his, Heathcliff can be compared to Lotus from Raise the Red Lantern. Lotus attained a higher status by marrying Chen Zuoqian as Heathcliff did by being adopted into the Earnshaw family. The two characters have similar introductions into their respective households. Like Heathcliff, Lotus was not welcomed when she was carried into the Chen family. Washing Lotus’s face and bathing Heathcliff are symbolic, because these actions purify the newcomer of their filth and poverty before entering the house. Another similarity between these characters is that they were favored by the head of the household. Lotus is pampered by Chen Zuoqian as he “was very satisfied; the way he doted on Lotus was noticed by everyone high and low in the Chen household.” (Tong 21) Similarly, Heathcliff “was not insolent to his benefactor; he was simply insensible, though knowing perfectly the hold he had on his heart, and conscious he had only to speak and all the house would be obliged to bend to his wishes.” (Bronte 43) The most important difference between them is that Lotus does not experience a passion as compelling as Heathcliff’s.
Hally from Master Harold and the Boys can relate to Lotus, because he abuses his caretakers as Lotus bullies Swallow. They are two young characters who demand respect from others to compensate for their low self-esteem. Another note is that all three characters have issues with their fathers. Heathcliff was an adopted son and when his father died, he was left to the tyranny of Hindley. Lotus’s father “had slashed his wrists open and gone effortlessly down to the Yellow Springs of the Dead.” (Tong 19) This traumatized her as she was unable to cry and still washed her hair in the sink where her dad killed himself. Lastly, Hally has problems with his father because he is an alcoholic and is a burden to take care of.
The characters face similar types of conflicts. In his internal conflict, Hally is frustrated when he does not know how to properly express his anger. He becomes reckless as he talks to Sam and he suggests to him, “To begin with, why don’t you start calling me Master Harold, like Willie.” (Fugard 54) Hally tells Sam the racist joke that his father told him and when Sam walks away, Hally spits on his face. This act of spitting another person’s face is humiliating and shows that the person is inferior. The description of how Hally hesitates when arguing with Sam reveals his uncertainty and confusion. His conflict is unresolved, however the possibility of making another kite provides a chance for the dilemma to be solved. Heathcliff’s conflict is man vs. man or man vs. society. He cannot accept that Catherine has chosen Edgar Linton over him. Also, society looks down upon him since he is a gypsy and has dark features. Hindley started beating him when he was younger, and in his teens, Heathcliff was degraded to the status of the house’s servant. He overcomes this conflict by becoming a nouveau riche capitalist and plotting against the other characters. Next, Lotus’s conflict is man vs. man, because the other mistresses are hostile. She also has issues with her maid Swallow, who tries to curse her with voodoo dolls and toilet paper. In solving this conflict, she closes herself off from the rest of the household and does not recover from her mental disturbance.