From+characters+to+themes

You've done a good job of analysing the characters; by and large, your short essays are well written. (I have a theory that posting on a site like this, where you KNOW people are going to read what you write, improves the quality of writing. I may be wrong - please let me know if you do or do not prefer working like this.)

One basic tip - some of you are writing about these characters as though they are real people; in terms of how 'surprised' or 'disappointed' you are at their actions, or how 'likeable' or 'unlikeable' they are. This is not an approach that I'd recommend - apart from anything else, it makes you sound a bit mad. Remember that your are dealing with an artificial construct here, a work of art(ifice). They're not real people! As analytical students of literature, what you need to do is focus on what the **author** is doing rather than the **characters**- forget whether Katharina is 'likeable', tell us why Boll wants the audience to like her. Recognise that the characters are often merely tools to serve the author's needs. This is very, very important.

How difficult did you find this task, the analysis of Boll's characters? Not very, I suspect. Which means that one of two things is true:
 * You are all geniuses
 * Boll's characters are easy to analyse

Regretfully, I'm going to have to go for the second one. Some writers create characters of enormous depth and complexity - Shakespeare is an obvious example, but, as a more relevant example, those of you who have read the next text, 'The Sailor Who Fell...' will have realised that Yukio Mishima's characters are drawn in rather more depth and detail than Boll's. Generally, and for obvious reasons, depth of characterisation is seen to be a positive thing in literature; it makes the characters more lifelike, more seemingly human and thus capable of communicating more truth and provoking more empathy. Boll's characters are generally somewhat one-dimensional.

As with any art form, however, nothing is always true: there are no actual rules, which is why studying literature is both more difficult and more rewarding than the lesser subjects like Maths or Science :-) Is Heinrich Boll a bad writer? Does he simply create lousy characters? You may think so, and you'd find it easy to convince others. However, it may also be that he is deliberately creating one-dimensional characters in order to make a point and to develop his main theme.

(This is another general point, by the way: studying characterisation is generally (not always; remember, there are no 'rules') seen as being a fairly simple way to analyse literature. It'll get you a 'C' at GCSE. To get beyond that, we need to look at the bigger picture; put crudely, the characters are often vehicles for communicating the themes. That is, take your analysis of the characters one step further. For example, which themes does Katharina's character help to communicate? The oppression of the individual by the state? The oppression of women by men? How does Boll use her character in these contexts?)

Returning to Boll's purpose in creating seemingly 'flat' characters, consider the main theme of the novel; the fluid nature of truth. From that, all else springs. Boll's extended metaphor of 'puddles' of truth draining into each other establishes this theme at the very start. We can never really know the motivations or thoughts of his characters, just as we can never REALLY know what motivates another person. We don't know all there is to know about any of them, and this is reflected in the restricted depth he accords them. If we accept this as an underlying theme of the novel, we can understand, for example, his outrage at the press; how can they purport to offer such one-sided, one-dimensional narratives as 'truth'? Whose version of events CAN we trust? None of them - that's the point.

These unreliable narratives also reflects the shifting nature of truth in an oppressive society - it helps create the general sense that truth is constantly being manipulated in order to serve the interests of one party or another. Much the same technique is used for much the same purpose in 'The Handmaid's Tale'.

So, what is Boll actually telling us? A number of things:
 * We can't trust any version of the truth...
 * ... particularly in a society which is oppressive for whatever reason.
 * Those who try to 'own' the truth - such as the tabloid press - are inherently untrustworthy.
 * There's no point in thinking that authors or writers can tell us 'the truth'. Like anyone else, they can only give us a version of truth, and this is reflected in the obvious unreliability of all the narrators in the novel. Remember, at least at one level, this is metafiction - fiction about fiction. The self-conscious narrative voice (it doesn't pretend to do anything except tell a story; the novel doesn't pretend to be anything apart from a novel) constantly reminds us that we are reading a book, that it is artificial, that it has no more ability to tell 'the truth' than any other story.

So, in conclusion, good job, all of you; now, in most cases, we need to crank it up a bit. Get to the heart of the matter; what is the author trying to communicate, and how is (s)he doing it? Oh, and, as usual - all of this is merely MY opinion. The best students tend to disagree quite a lot, or at least ask for clarification! Please feel free to add comments or thoughts.