1. What passage did you find the most beautiful in this novel and why? Dig into setting here, and give us detail about why you have chosen your passage.
I personally found the passage about the Garden of the Blind, on Page Island most beautiful (p 167). The passage evokes a feeling of pleasure because of the imagery created, using senses of sight, sound, and smell. The setting requires the use of our five senses because it is the Garden of the “Blind” (167). After Patrick blows up the dock at the Muskoka Hotel, he hides in this garden, “unseen among the blind” (167) and to me, this expression seems really beautiful. The imagery of sounds, such as “bird-calls like drops of water” (167) is quite delicate but because later in the passage, it says that Patrick witnesses “not sound but smell” (168), we find that smell has more significance than sound in this particular scene. I believe that in this passage, Patrick learns something about letting go of the past to go on with his life and there is an analogy between the senses used in the Garden of the Blind and Patrick’s life. Elizabeth, the blind lady, tells Patrick that “to focus your nasal powers you must forget about sounds” and I think she is in a way, telling Patrick to let go of his past, the sorrow and grief he is feeling due to Alice’s death, and focus on the present instead of the past. Because the sense of sight is absent in this novel, the descriptions of the things around are more vivid, evoking a greater range of imagination with the senses of smell and sound. Elizabeth, who is blind, seems more relaxed and content with the world she is living in because Patrick “watches how her relaxed body drifts in this world,” (169) and she is enjoying her walk in the garden as she touches and smells. Often times, people say that the eye is the mirror to the soul and because the sense of sight is absent in this passage, I think it indicates how Patrick has lost his true soul because he is too overwhelmed by grief and anger, causing him to lose his true self.
Patrick is also “alien” to the Garden, and this leaves me with more feeling of isolation and depression, which I think adds more beauty to the passage. It evokes the feeling of pathos from the reader.
2. What character do you most identify with in this novel and why? Is pathos an element of your response to this character? Again, be specific here. Look for textual evidence and help us understand your thoughts.
I think I identify with Alice Gull the most because we are both very conservative when it comes to expressing our feelings and revealing our true identities. Alice, throughout the novel, had this melancholy atmosphere to her because of her hazy past and sadness under her mask of a strong individual. On the outside, she seems strong and as a source of strength for Patrick, but I believe that she has sorrows and grief of her own to deal with, which evokes the feeling of pathos from me. First of all, it is probable that Alice is the nun that fell of the bridge and was caught by Nicholas, and after that, she changes her identity and lives as a different person. I feel sadness in the scene where Nicholas saves Alice and they are talking at the bar. Although we do not know where Alice got her scar on the nose from, when Nicholas asks where she got it from, “she pulled back” (36). I get intimidated by others very easily too, especially strangers, but I do not necessarily show my emotions and am usually extremely calm. Between Nicholas and Alice, there is an unspoken feeling that hovers around these two characters throughout the novel because they still stay as “friends” and this somehow leaves me feeling heartbroken with the realization that certain things will not happen even if the two individuals know each other’s feeling perfectly well. Although she is later with Hana and Patrick, I still feel as if she is feeling alone more than ever. Because nobody knows who she truly is and what she is truly feeling inside, she has deliberately separated herself from the world and the people who are willing to understand her. This deliberate act makes life more miserable full of grief for her, and I often times do this to myself too, which leaves me distressed. I especially like the part when she says that “I [Alice] play the way I think. And heartbreaking romance is all I want in music” (147). Although she is a source of security and strength for Patrick, where does she get her strength and sense of security from? To me, she seems like a mere human being who is only trying to appear strong and live “in the skin of a lion” when she is actually feeling hollow and left with grief and sorrow inside.
3. Is tragic flaw an issue in this novel? Choose one character and explore how their tragic flaw resulted in disaster.
Yes, I believe that tragic flaw is an issue in this novel. This tragic flaw is actually what creates the feeling of pathos throughout the novel. Patrick, the protagonist of the novel, has the greatest tragic flaw in this novel, in my opinion, because he is constantly experiencing fall and disasters. He continuously loses his loved ones, including his father, Clara to Ambrose, and Alice. He has to cope with anger and sorrow, and because he fails to deal with this wisely and calmly, he blows up the dock at the Muskoka Hotel and kills the lives of others because of Alice’s death. Also, when Clara leaves him, he has difficulties dealing with his emotions and sorrow, and later confronts Ambrose, which leaves him severely injured and hurt, both physically and emotionally, because ultimately we find out that Clara will never choose Patrick over Ambrose, or materialism. Patrick’s tragic flaw not only brings disaster to the others, but especially to himself. Because of these falls that he experiences, he has hardships searching for his true identity and hope. Clara never really opens herself up to him because “he keeps finding and losing parts of her, as if opening a drawer to discover another mask” (79). He cannot find out who Alice truly is either Patrick constantly wonders and thinks “if Alice Gull had been a nun?”(146). Because he constantly fails to find true love from Clara and Alice and is left brokenhearted, this leads to even more confusion for Patrick. Although Patrick ultimately reaches a point of redemption and restoration of hope in the very end, until then his fall and tragic flaw leads to even more disasters and confusion in the novel.
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