The Go Between and Spies

THE MAIN CHARACTERS IN THE mediator AND SPIES ARE SOCIALLY OPRRESSED ARE SOCIALLY OPPRESSSED How far-off do you typify off with this statement? Social Oppression is a main theme explored by issue the deuce tragic novels, The Go-Between and Spies. Throughout the novels, L. P. Hartley and Michael Frayn success in full convey the idea, finished the go for of their main shells, the effects of amicable oppression and single out divide. exploitation domainy techniques they establish how straighten out and oppression had power over the state of the Victorian era.And charge aft(prenominal) the turn of the century, People were put away detain in the shadows of the past era. Both novels ar told as flashbacks taking us through the operates of two main protagonists. The climax of both novels lead to the sack of two male characters due to oppression. This gives us the idea that men were downstairs greater pressure from social oppression. Considering, Marian and Ted are ca ught to lounge or soher two bodies moving wish peerless in the squalid out hold but as provided only when Ted rec every(prenominal)s his brio. king of beasts, macrocosmacutely alert of social low quality swings to the original opposite as he aspires to be a member of the h all in all. social lion, a foreigner in the ball of emotions, a character so fanciful and sensitive dejects invited into the world of Brandham hall in the summer of 1900. With Marcus thinking he was corresponding them from the sophisticated sound of his home Court Place. He sees himself as lower class and a mere mortal 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 in all 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, a strugglee of the social dispute, feels standardized a misfit among these smart rich pile. He is determined to keep his class a secret even though Mrs Maudsley had the ability to fix you comparable a pinned butterfly with her gaze. He overlooks the authentic care of his own beat and comments that she would be socially unimaginable she would make a bloomer and prepares to bear the humiliation by himself. social lion being so young, had no make have provokeledge of the events and property roughly them. This want of sleep togetherledge and naivety makes him lost 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 only cads adopt their school clothes in the holidays. He starts to think of clothes as badges of social berth and takes an offer from Marian to take him to Norwich tomorrow and get him a new outfit. This makes to a greater extent highly alert of his social inferiority as he has only fifteen shillings and eight penc e half penny as she adds that doesnt matter, weve got some. This opens way for Marian to take avail of Leos malleability and he shapes Mercury for Ted and Marian as he gets involved with the illicit love interest.Leo admits hes a super snob and this snobbish, naive and bigoted character failed to allow him meet the danger of his work until its earlier too late and the anguish is already done. He fails to realise what spooning is due to his neglect of knowledge he could only have the thought of Ted Burgees as her spooning partner. He gets a jet-propelled plane suit and a green bike as Marian felt green is his true colour and is cry outed a jumplock. After all these he hush fails to realise hes been mocked but rather still seeks for adventure thinking of himself as a figure of fun. The shameful ending is caused by Leos naivety and lack of knowledge.He fails to realise the trauma disaster around him until it leads to the demolition of Ted after the virgin and the wate r carrier are caught together two bodies moving human beingage one. Un a kindred Leo, who Marcus his booster station is nice too, Stephen back ups a worse oppression as hes hu globeipulated and pressured by his own friend his age Keith. Like Leo he feels like a misfit everywhere as he comments that he doesnt rather fit with the pigtailed Geest girls and the oil stained Avery boys, but he nevertheless 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 known to everyone and he couldnt even dare to keep it a secret. He was the other ranks and strange Leo, although he felt the class difference he was still grateful to be so. He went to a different school all in all from Keith with uniforms socially coded for ease of reference. He lived in a semi-detached accommodate attached to the pinchers making the complete situation even more shameful. While his friend Keith lived in a nominate wi th white wicket gates with a neat red brick path that curves through rose beds.He felt like he wasnt even noneworthy of the Haywards as he reads The Haywards were impeccable and yet they tolerated him and Mrs Haywards incomprehensible niceness. Stephen like Leo, has the colour green associated with them as Stephen admits everything most me was plainly green. Stephen didnt dare to go against Keiths orders as Keith was the attracter and he was the led. Stephens feeling of social inferiority to Keith allows Keith to run and intimidate Keiths life as Stephen sees Keith as the first in a whole series of dominant figures whose disciple I became.Stephen sees himself as the undersized boy with the teapot ears following his powerful friend open mouthed and trustful. 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. Bo th boys are completely unaware of sex and its this lack knowledge that makes Leo non realize what spooning is and Stephen misinterprets the Xs and in Mrs Haywards diary. Both boys become messengers for illicit love affairs and dont realise what theyre been used for.Being naive and snobbish like Leo, Keith fails to realize the relationship surrounded by Uncle neb 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, 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 world power 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 cant.He didnt realise he was German and even detested the thought a German as it was during the war time and being German in B ritain at that point would be a sign of betrayal and a huge deal. Both boys hard affected by class, and sexual awakening lead them to events that affect them end-to-end their lives and see the need to reconcile their past with their future as Leo says the facts of life were a mystery to me. Their lack of knowledge cant be conglomerationly blamed on them but rather the times and conditions they lived in.They lived in a party where even girls could grow into women and not know where children were given turn out to from or know what awaited them on their wedding night. Children were forbidden to know nor talk just 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 combined with loss of innocence. Just like Stephen begins to know more and starts sightedness the path ahead as darker tunnels and no longer remote blue horizons.However, this lack of knowledge leav es both boys lives in a complete shatter 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 accountable for the death of Ted Burgees as he comments that the tidings of Teds self-destruction came to me voicelessly as he haunted him. He lives thinking in destroying the belladonna he had excessively destroyed Ted and peradventure destroyed himself. He was left a lonely man sit 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 grammatical construction 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 shooting himself after the findings of Mrs Maudsley in the outhouses to avoid the societal write down and spare Marian the embarrassment.Ted was ladened by his lack of social spot as Denys doesnt fail to say we dont know him socially of course and his lack of money as he rents his land from Lord Trimingham. Hartley makes reference to the class range in the society using the complex sub-textual elements of the interaction among 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 bonny thing but yet they couldnt be together due to the distinction in their social class and her expectations to link an aristocrat.The villagers admire them and feel if it wasnt for the difference what a handsome pair theyll make. Ted Burgees isnt ashamed to tell anyone about his low class as he admits to Leo Im a lovable friend of hers but doesnt hesitate to say but not the sort she goe s 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 ladys man and was content with his work 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 t all(prenominal)es 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 laden by his lack of money and the defects of his face from the Boer war. He was frightfully ugly and we learn from Marcus that he doesnt like you to feel begrimed for him. Hartley contrasts his hideous sick shaped scar that ran from his eye to the corner of his mouth with the image of war making him a hero with a punctuate of the hospital and battlefield. Trimingham is the gentle, chivalrous re boonative of a dying tradition, flush 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 extend 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 tar get.When Leo first sees Trimingham he immediately concludes itll be impossible to like him and so doesnt expect Marian to espouse him after he learns from 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 calamus 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 barrage missions over Germany.W ar 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 however, 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 worship and idealised even much more after the war, we cant say the same about Uncle Peter.Indeed he was idolised and his iconic status still remains with Auntie Dee, as Stephen tells us the untidiness of their house glowed with a kind of sacred light, like a saint and his attributes in a religious painting. This image is a different man from the man in the barns who is now that low in the table of charitablekind precedence. This painting is nothing close to that of war hero. As the teller unveils the mystery we find out he has betrayed his country, deserted his duties under the submit youre up there in the darkness five degree Cels ius miles away from home and suddenly the darkness is in you as sound.The man at the Barns and Uncle Peter are two different beings. unmatched is a desperate, sick broken, deserted individual and the other whose eagle 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 scared 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 marital 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 howler monkey of terror in the darkness as he struggles to close his mind to the retention by using second 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 velvety 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 vie some game, and youre the brave 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. Maria n Maudsley a beautiful godess from Brandham hall an upper middle classed family in late-Victorian England with her hair glittery with sunshine and pale rose-pink face. She has so many social expectations from both her family and the society. Best of all shes expected 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 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 mother 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 hard at it all the time. She also thinks she can marry Trimingham 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 barbarous and heartless character to an extent.She was a snob as Leo towards Trimingham on some(prenominal) 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 savings bank over when Leo asks her why she slang 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 loose 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 cunning which leaves the young man dead and she ends up as Lady Trimingham. She uses Leo as the Go-Between between 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 wishy-washyness and tells Leo Ted is as weak as water.Marian is sometimes nice to Leo, ut however, all her niceness towards him eternally had a motive behind it. She takes him to Norwich so she can get the run a risk to see Ted, she buys him a bicycle to make the message delivery fast-paced 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. Mari an 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 continued 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 manner at the start of the novel with her serious, emotionally overwrought 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 married woman 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 supervision 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 get into 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.