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Friendly enemies--Character analysis of Guests of the nation by Frank O’Conner

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Mar.2009,Volume 6,No.3(Serial No.63) Sino-US English Teaching,ISSN 1539-8072,USA Friendly enemies Character analysis of Guests of the nation by Frank O’Conner HUXuan (College ofForeign Studies,Gansu Agricultural University,Lanzhou 730070,China) Abstract:The paper focuses on the four soldiers away from the battle field depicted in the short story Guests ofthe nation written by Frank O’Conner.The character analysis is achieved by the reflection of the human nature when the soldiers were temporarily living peacefully and their painful conflicts between duty as soldiers and human nature as men.Through the tragic fate of both the two executed Englishmen and the executors--two Irish men.the cruelty of the war is strongly condemned.The war mercilessly defeated the human nature cultivated through the friendship and knowing with each other. Key words:Guests ofthe nation;character analysis;English soldiers;Irish soldiers;war 1.IntrOductiOn Frank 0’Conner,pseudonym of Michael Francis O’Donovan(1 903-1 966),was born in Cork,the son ot a solider;he is best known for his short stories,many of which are much revised and rewritten.Collections include Bones of Contention,Crab Apple Jelly,Traveler’s Samples,and Domestic Relations.Realistic and closely observed,they offer a full portrait of the middle and lower classes of Ireland,and of the“warm dim odorous feckless evasive southern quality”of his native Cork. According to the development of the story,the short story Guests ofthe nation can be divided into two parts. In the first part of the story,Frank O’Conner narrates the temporarily peaceful and friendly life of two English prisoners of war,who were living with an old Irish woman and two Irish soldiers who actually watched out the English prisoners.They called“chum”each other.played cards and debated heatedly on belief,getting on with each other as well as good friend.Temporarily there was no war,no enemy,no hatred and rio difference of nationality.But in the latter part,the temporary peace was soon broken up by the cruel reality that the other four Irish prisoners of war were killed by the English army.In order to revenge,the two Englishmen had to be killed. After they experienced diffe:rent and strong inward conflicts between the duty and the humanity,humaniy wast defeated by the duty.Unfortunately,the two English soldiers were killed in their friends’presence. The writing is representative of maturiy of trealism,embodying the features of realistic writing.The author emphasizes on the details,for example,the description of the dressing of the two English soldiers,the detailed portray of the debate on religion between Hawkings and Noble,and Hawkings’eager inquiry before death.The author f.0cuses on common people:four low.rank soldiers,depicting their conversations,their inward feeling, conflicts and pain.By depicting the four soldiers’tragedy,the author revealed the cruelty of the war and the negligibility of individuals. HU Xuan,M.A.,lecturer of College of Foreign Studies,Gansu Agricultural University;research field:British and American literature. 56 Friendly enemies---Character analysis of Guests ofthe na ̄on by Frank O’Conner 2.A general discussion of the soldiers’character In the whole short story,the narrator describes six soldiers in the first person,two English soldiers and four Irish soldiers,mainly focusing on four soldiers,two English ones:Belcher and Hawkings;two Irish ones:Noble and I(Bonaparte). Belcher and Hawkings,two English prisoners of the war between England and Ireland,were taken over by Noble and Bonaparte,two young Irish soldiers.Although from the very beginning and at the end of the story,two young Irish soldiers knew the point of keeping them—_they were captives,Bonaparte subconsciously believed that Belcher and Hawkings would never escape and were content to be where they were in spite of the boring cottage life. During the temporary friendly life among them,the war between the two nations had never been mentioned by any of these four soldiers.From this,it is clear that both parties cherished the temporary peace,expecting to forget the shadow of the war and leaving behind the political differences and with the hope that common people could lead trivial but normal and peaceful life. Belcher was big,sober,and silent,who hardly smiled,on the contrary his companion,Hawkings,was shorter and very talkative.They often played cards with the two Irish soldiers and soon they became chums as if they had belonged to the same national group. Hawkings and Noble often had a heated argument about the belief,seemingly totally forgetting the situation where they were in.Noble and Bonaparte had never regarded them as enemies,never looked down upon,still less insulting Hawking and Belcher.Although there were existing the religious differences between them,they still could live together in peace. As individuals,when far away from the battle field,they tried to live and communicate as normally as they could.Vigorous Hawkings was full of hope for the life,not aware of the final tragic fate awaiting ahead,talking about dancing,and having better knowledge of Ireland than native Bonaparte and Noble. In the story,there was quite odd description of Belcher,who got off with the old woman of the house they stayed.The bad-tempered old woman was quite kind and friendly to the two prisoners,treating them as friends and guests.No sooner had he been in her house than Belcher helped the old woman break sticks.He liked to be at her heels,carry a bucket,a basket,or a loud of turk Whenever the old woman wanted any little thing,he would have it ready for her.It was until at the last moment,the readers may understand why he did so.In his deep heart, he wanted to lead an ordinary,normal,and peaceful home life free of the war. In the latter part of the story one character played an important role.Jeremiah Donovan coming from the country was a sober and contented poor devil like Belcher.He seldom drew his hands out of his pockets,reddened and tilted when people talked to him.Although he also got excited over Hawkings’s cards game,it was this sober man who brought Bonaparte and Noble the order of killing the two Englishmen and was in charge of the execution of the shooting.He distinguished the line between the human nature and the duty very clearly. 3.Conflicts between human nature and duty Hawkings and Noble held different beliefs,the author spent a lot of pages in describing their arguing.What’s the purpose?No matter how different their beliefs were,both of them longed ofr peace,friendship and normal life. In the face of the conflict between human nature and duty,they all felt painful,reluctant to make a choice between duty to be fuliflled as soldiers and rfiends as ordinary human beings. These four soldiers,belonging to different nations,got on well with each other.Quickly the temporary peace 57 Friendly enemies--Character analysis of Guests ofthe nation by Frank 0’Conner was broken up,because four Irish prisoners of the war were shot by the English army.Naturally Belcher and Hawkings’hostage life must be ended--they two would be shot for revenge. Bonaparte was the first person of the four who got the news that the two Englishmen would be killed. Hearing about this,Bonapa ̄e was quite puzzled and he claimed“How could we when they were on our hands so long?”When they had lived together for quite a long time and established good terms,when they had been chums, it was cruel and incredible to shoot the two English friends.But in the face ofthe war between the two nations,the nature,humanity,personal relationships had to shrink.They had to fulfill their duty as soldiers. When he talked over the sudden news with Noble,they both naively thought the brigade oficers knew the ftwo English soldiers so well that they would not kill them.They also considered Donovan unforeseen who in fact knew the nature of the war better than Bonaparte and Noble.The next day,Bonaparte and Noble found that it was so hard to face the two Englishmen that they went about all day,hardly talking.That was quite unusual,because Hawkings and Noble often argued heatedly.As the most dificultf day passed,they relieved,beginning to play cards.At that time Donovan came with the decided news that the two Englishmen would be killed on that night. Faced with such cruel choosing,Noble asked to be left out of the task,and another soldier Feeney who came with Donovan also tried to avoid doing so.But eventually all of them joined in the shooting in different ways,for which all of them would never find the inward peace and comfort. It was very dificulft to convince Hawkings that they two English soldiers would be shot,because in his eyes it was unbelievable and unreasonable to kill the friends.He didn’t trust Donovan and Bonaparte’explanation until Noble with whom he o en debated showed up.Although as usual he started the argument again,Noble just kept silent.The inward sorrow and pain made Noble speechless.Not confident enough in his duty,Noble felt very sorry for being unable to avert the tragic fate.Two dozen times,Hawkings repe ̄ed the question“if anybody thought he’d shoot Noble?”He struggled and wanted to wake up the sense of humanity,but he failed.Donovan irst pointed the gun at hifm,he fell down,dead. When it came to Belche ̄probably from the beginning he knew their fate very wel1.When Bonaparte and Noble were unusually silent,he seemed to wait for something unpredicted to happen;when he was told that they would be shited agaifn,he said nothing but was upset.Although he quite understood the situation and managed to calmly draw out the handkerchief to tie it about his own eyes,he behaved unusually,laughing and talking much more than before.From his account we know about Hawking’s mother and we know that Belcher’s miserable personallire that he had married.but his wife took the child and went away with another man. At the last moment he explained the reason why he was ready to help the old Irish women was that he liked the feeling of being at home.Before the last minute of the life he expressed deep love for the peaceful and normal life.He had struggled against the cruel fate,but he failed and was lost in despair. In the story,the dying friends understood their living friends and forgave them,but it is not dificult to fimagine what sufferings the living must have endured in their rest life. It was the war between two nations that brought them together and gave them the chance of living temporarilv peaceful life and becoming friends,while it was also the war that cruelly separated them and forced the friends to shoot the friends. We know.one soldier is only one in a million or even millions of soldiers ofthe army,but to the family,he is uniQue he is the son of a mother,the husband of a wife and the father of a child.The war is so cruel that the death Of One s0ldier is a little case to the whole army,but to a family,it means a great loss and endless suffering. 58 Friendly enemies---Character analysis of Guests ofthe nation by Frank 0’Conner 4.Conclusion The author in detail depicts several soldiers’images away from the battle field,not describing how brave they were,j ust describing their painful conflicts between duty and nature.Through their arguing,their card—playing in the peaceful time,through the inquiry before the death and inward conflicts of both parties,the story reflects the cruelty of the war and the desire for peace,lets readers understand that only in peaceful times the humanity can be kept,and can not be deformed. 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