Reading the novel "Brody's Castle" by the English writer Archibald Cronin, you involuntarily imbued with an atmosphere of sadness and hopelessness, there is a feeling that you live with them the whole history of the family. The psychological contradictions in the family and the tragic consequences of egoism and pride of the protagonist of the story hold the reader in the grip of a gloomy world. The plot of the novel is intense and at the same time dynamic. Archibald Cronin was a real discovery for many readers.
About the novel
Brody Castle was conceived by Archibald Kronin (1896 - 1981) as a tragic tale of egoism and cruel pride. In the original, the title of the novel sounds like Hatter's Castle ("Hatter's Castle"). The author rewrote it several times, destroying some of the pages as a whole.
Cronin did not expect a stunning success for the novel. The plot of "Brody's Castle" includes many main and side lines that tell either of consanguinity or of friendships. The novel scares with its frankness and realism. Therefore, there is no doubt that the characters of the novel existed in real life. The action takes place in the fictional city of Leavenford in 1879. According to the plot of the work, the Brody family will have to endure many trials.
Cronin skillfully and very subtly showed the characters of his heroes, hopelessness, suffering. A living book literally from the first pages takes the strings of the soul and finally draws the reader into the world of storytelling. In the novel "Brody Castle" Cronin describes a not too long period of time in the life of a family in which he explores the phenomenon of destruction.
Who is Brody
The central character of the novel by James Brody is a complete egoist and tyrant. With him in the house live a mother who has lost her mind, forty-year-old wife Margaret, an adult son Matthew and two daughters: Mary, who is seventeen years old, and twelve-year-old Nessie.
James Brody, the owner of a hat store, enjoys fame and influence in the city, mainly due to his wealthy customers. This is a cruel and imperious person, despising all those whom he considers below himself. He is strict with his family, and sometimes even cruel.
The unbearable nature of the hatter turns the lives of family members into hell. The inaction of the victims, members of his family, who are the protagonists of Brody Castle, is understandable. Neither the wife, nor, especially, the children had an idea to escape from this despot somewhere. They considered such a life to be the norm. âI'll be home when I come,â sounds from Brody's mouth as an undeniable power over the household.
Father cruelty
Without a gram of regret, barely restraining her anger, Brody throws Mary's eldest daughter out on the street, learning about her pregnancy. He absolutely does not care about the fate of his daughter. He learns about what happened to her from the city gossip. But Brody does not care about the health or life of the eldest daughter. He gloatingly thinks about the death of Mary's beloved - Denis Foyle.
Life punishes him, but he does not perceive the blows of fate as lessons. Archibald Cronin in Brody Castle shows very reliably that people like the main character of the story - the hatter, are incorrigible.
Brody's attitude to people
This is a vain and self-righteous tyrant, and his vanity has no reason, neither intellectual nor material. Brody considered brute physical strength and rudeness a virtue, sweeping away everything that he considered unworthy of his greatness.
He wants to become a famous person in the city. But the locals look at him as an eccentric, whom they donât want to argue, because they donât want to listen to his swearing and threats.
... What I cannot stand in this man is his diabolical sullen pride, which grows and grows, no matter what. She has a kind of illness. And pride is stupid, meaningless. If he could look at himself from the side, he would become more modest ...
(statement by one of the inhabitants of the town)
And the family for him was a handful of slaves who had to obey all his requirements. And not only family members were slaves. He behaves like a tyrant and with his clerk Peter Perry, who suggests innovating in order to somehow compete with the haberdashery firm Manjo & K, which appeared in the city.
... soon all Brody's clients will go there (to a haberdashery firm). To top it all, Perry also does this, frustrated by the boring and uninteresting job of the rude and ungrateful Brody. And although Brody's financial situation has been greatly shaken, he continues to be rude to customers. His affairs are getting worse and worse.
The life of the hatter
Brody, having power over the fate of loved ones, seeks to turn their lives into hard labor, fill his bile. He doesnât put his wife in anything, despises his son, who returned from work without earning anything. In the end, Brody goes broke and is forced to go to work as a small clerk, which is called "from riches to mud", turning from a successful person into a drunkard, a reveler, a beggar.
Brought into the house, Nancy's mistress becomes his son's lover, they escape from his father to South America. Brody has a hope for her youngest daughter, which he makes him sit over the university textbooks around the clock to receive her scholarship. But the girl was denied scholarships, which is why she hanged herself. So Brodyâs last hope collapses, to regain his position in society. The death of the lesser daughter leads Brody to the realization of the horror of his situation, the realization that he was left alone in the house with a woman who is afraid of him, with his half-insane mother. He crashes everywhere: both in the city and in his own house, which resembles a prison rather than a castle.
Other characters in the novel
If we consider the actions of each of the children of Brody, it becomes clear that each of them took servility from his mother, and selfishness from his father. In each of their children, these characteristics vary in different proportions. Nessie's little daughter is cowardly and selfish. The son is a spineless boor, spoiled by his mother, fulfilling all his whims. It was the love of the mother, who closed her eyes to all the actions of her son, that made him cruel and demanding, no worse than his father, slavish obedience to his mother.
Mary was not given enough attention, and she got into an unpleasant situation through ignorance and inexperience. The pages of the novels describe a terrible story of the eldest daughter Mary - her love and loss of a child, her father's expulsion from the house during a terrible hurricane cause heartache. Mary appears to the reader as a naive child with such a bleak future. This is not to say that the girlâs past was sweet. It is overshadowed by her tyrant dad and limp mother. She simply had to look for a society where she was needed, where she would be loved. She is in a novel, as it were, separated from the family. It is not known how her life would have developed if she had stayed with Brody. But she escaped from this terrible prison, even under such terrible circumstances.
When you finish reading Croninâs novel Brody's Castle, there is little hope that even Nessie, the smallest of the children, will change her fatherâs affairs after receiving the expected scholarship. But, having received a refusal to issue a scholarship, this fragile girl decided to die, so as not to remain in heavy bonds.
Brody's wife causes pity when reading, but sometimes her behavior provokes anger. How could a tyrant husband talk about his daughterâs pregnancy? Margaret is difficult to attribute to positive characters because of her spinelessness and servility to her husband, but humanly she is somehow especially sorry.
The characters of the novel that evoke warm feelings are Mary and Dr. Renwick, who saved her when she lost her child, sincerely loving her. In the novel, Mary's lover was charming and cheerful. Many are sorry that he died. The positive characters include the farmer who helped Mary.
Reader Reviews
In reviews of Cronin's Brody Castle, readers agree on one thing: the tyranny and snobbery shown by the author on the example of a hatter character. Reading a book, a sane person will be outraged by the behavior of the tyrant Brody, his "diabolical pride", which is actually pride. Recommendations to read the book are in all reviews. It would seem that the history of family life, unremarkable in nothing, sinks into the soul for many. The book is good, according to readers, with a very important issue. Having turned the last page of the novel and having read it to the end, I want to tell others that they would be kinder and more tolerant of each other.
The recall of one of the readers says that the book made a strong impression on her and aroused interest in the work of Archibald Cronin. Thanks to this good book, he became one of her favorite writers. He actually has several novels that deserve the attention of readers.
Summary
Reflecting on the novel read, we can conclude that tyrants are not born. They appear in the world from the blind love of mothers and submissive wives. Not without the participation of the inner circle, a sort of tyrant Brody appears with fostered disgusting character traits. The more society accepts this behavior, the more household members assent, living in the role of a victim, the faster a despot is born.