Having read numerous novels of various intentions and central ideas, it becomes easy to identify what is meant by authors and which features of the character are described to inspire or to teach the audience. In most of those novels, character himself is the message of the novel and depiction of author’s perception of reality. The novel “Incendiary” by Chris Cleave is not an exception. However, unlike most of the novels, his narration does not describe values he would like people to obtain; he shows the complexity and duality of human nature in the real environment, where goodness does not often win and where innocent children become victims of the interstate conflicts and civilisations’ clash. All this complexity was shown in the main heroine of the novel, who lost her son in the terrorist attack on the stadium. The aim of the present paper is to outline what was sympathetic and what might be considered to be unsympathetic about the main heroine.
The first thing which makes the heroine sympathetic is her sincerity in self-evaluation and expression of feelings. In the letter she writes to Osama Bin Laden, she is not afraid to express her personal grief and emptiness of her heart for the loss of her son. She is not simply addressing the murder of her the most beloved creature in the whole world, but actually unravels her wounded soul in front of him and the audience. It takes a huge courage even to start the letter with “dear Osama”, not to speak of the whole narration of her life and feelings. She hates the man who killed her son but also realises that no one in the whole world except him would understand why and what she is writing about. He was the cause and the final result. Thus, her courage and emotional complexity make her sympathetic for me.
Another reason to feel sympathy for her is her strong feeling of justice and love for humanity. When she found that the government knew about possibility of attack, she could not let it go and wanted to attract public attention at all costs, but not human life. From one point, she had nothing else to loose and she could have easily set herself and Petra on fire in the name of revenge and protest. However, she could not harm another living creature, no matter how much she hated irresponsibility and cruelty of those people and the world around, the world which took her son. Therefore, she is sympathetic in her ability to do the right thing, irrespective of the depth of her grief and anger over the circumstances and people. Although one might argue that her conclusion that love is stronger than hate is rather trivial, she had suffered enough and been through enough of personal turmoil to appreciate the relief love can give to the heart exhausted by hate.
Overall, it can be concluded that Cleave managed to create a credible personality from the average middle-class British society that was lost in the interpersonal relations and after a terrible loss was trying to find the new way to restore her life out of ashes. Although I liked her courage and emotionality in everything she was doing, I definitely disliked her hesitations and certain naivety. However, this also means that just as any real individual, Cleave’s character is a complex individuality with her own life story to tell.
Reference
Cleave Chris (2009). Incendiary. London, LD: Sceptre.
