September 10, 2007
Imperfect Characters
Posted by Tracy Grant under A Tale of Two Cities, Mansfield Park, Marguerite St. Just, Scarlet Pimpernel, Secrets of a Lady, The Three Musketeers, Tracy GrantThe interesting discussion about Marguerite St. Just in the follow up comments to my post on the Scarlet Pimpernel got me to thinking about imperfect characters. I’ve always found flawed characters much more interesting than the more convetionally heroic sort. Growing up, Milady de Winter was my favorite character in “The Three Musketeers ” (I thought Constance was boring), I couldn’t understand why Lucie Manette looked twice at Charles Darnay when Sydney Carton was around, I much preferred Mary Crawford to Fanny Price.
Sydney Carton redeems himself by sacrificing his life, Milady ends up executed, Mary Crawford loses Edmund to virtuous Fanny. But Marguerite St. Just is a heroine who gets a happily-ever-after ending. And yet, as JMM points out in the comments on the Scarlet Pimpernel thread, Marguerite can be manipulative and flirtatious, and admits she married her husband at least in part for his fortune and position. As Sarah says in the same thread, “In TSP, Marguerite is very young and self-centred - she even manages to turn Armand’s beating into her own humiliation - but she is a strong character - and believable.” And I think it’s her very flaws that make her believable.
When I began to plot “Secrets of a Lady”, I knew Mélanie would be a somewhat risky heroine in that she makes choices that are decidedly morally ambiguous (as do a number of characters in the book). One friend who saw early pages of the book found Mélanie thoroughly unsympathetic. Another couldn’t imagine how the story could possibly have a happy ending. I tried hard in writing the book to show the forces that shaped Mélanie and the reasons she made the choices she did. But I also tried not to make excuses for her, just as Mélanie never makes excuses for herself. One of the reasons I love writing about her is that I’m never quite sure what she’ll do in a given situation or how far she’ll go.
How do you feel about flawed characters? Any particular favorites? Is there a line characters cross for you that goes from “flawed by sympathetic” to “irredeemable”?
If you haven’t already done so, be sure to check out my guest blogs on the Avon Romance Blog and Romantic Inks. And take a look at the Fraser Correspondence, where I’ve just posted Charles’s thoughts on new fatherhood.
September 11, 2007 at 10:52 am
I’m currently reading Secrets of a Lady, and very much enjoying it! Look what I have found through a chance Google of The Scarlet Pimpernel ..! I haven’t yet reached Melanie’s secret past, but I love her passionate marriage with Charles, especially the ‘ordinary’, loving moment they spend together just before hearing about Colin (and I’m having to adjust to that name!)
As to flawed characters, I prefer them only if their faults make them human, and neither unnaturally evil or blandly perfect; there must be a reason for their behaviour, even if only the character can see it. Hats off, for instance, to Marge Piercy and ‘City of Darkness, City of Light’, who makes Robespierre seem reasonable, if a little particular and motivated!
And of course, Marguerite - I’ve never viewed her as an archetypal flawed heroine, because everything she does (and how she justifies her actions to herself) is perfectly understandable: she puts herself and her needs first, but most people do. I think a few unpleasant qualities in a character can help to make them ‘real’ for the reader - even Percy takes his time to realise what he has in his beautiful, devoted wife, and the League still comes first!
September 11, 2007 at 1:10 pm
*Gasp!* I’ve just reached Melanie’s revelation(s)! Now, she puts Marguerite in the shade - and yet, as a character in her own right, I still like her. I don’t know what I would think if I had warmed to Charles as I have to Percy - how does a husband get past that? - but Melanie has that same balancing frailty as Marguerite: she’s beautiful, intelligent, alluring, desired by other men … but she’s also human. I think writing such a backstory for a female character gives her the power in a romantic relationship, which somehow weakens the man - he can end the marriage, but it is she who has the past, and who has been loved before. I am absolutely gripped by what will happen next (almost too intrigued to pay attention at work ..!) Wonderful!
September 11, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Replying to Comment #1 first:
Sarah, I’m thrilled you’re reading “Secrets of a Lady”! And thrilled you’re enjoying it :-). So glad you liked the early scene between Charles and Mélanie. It was a deceptively hard scene to write. It was important to set up their marriage and the two of them as characters before they learn Colin is missing and the plot takes off, and yet *because* the plot hasn’t taken, it was hard to focus the scene and keep it interesting. I did endless drafts (writing it was definitely a good way to get to know Mélanie and Charles).
I totally agree with your point about the flaws needing to make a character human and “there must be a reason for their behaviour, even if only the character can see it.” A character that’s evil for no reason can seem just as bland and one dimensional as a “perfect” character. (Thanks for the recommednation of the Marge Piercy book, btw).
Marguerite, I think, is a wonderful example of a character whose flaws make her very human and real. And you make a good point that Percy has flaws too. One of the great things about the scene on the terrace in Richmond–which I think is lost in a lot of the adaptations–is that it shows how both the Blakeneys have contributed to their estangement. Marguerite’s desire to be loved unconditionally and Percy’s pride have both complicated the situation. It’s a great scene, full of character nuances!
September 11, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Replying to Comment #2:
It’s so fun to hear from somone who’s *just* read the “revealtion scene” (which, oddly, enough, was much easier to write than the opening Charles and Mélanie scene; the emotions are so very clear and strong in the later scene). So glad you still like Mélanie.
Fascinating comment that “writing such a backstory for a female character gives her the power in a romantic relationship, which somehow weakens the man - he can end the marriage, but it is she who has the past, and who has been loved before”. I think Charles definitely feels Mélanie has had all the power in their relationship when he first learns about her past. She’s known the truth of their marriage for seven years, he’s been in the dark. He feels, quite understanably, like a fool. That’s part of what he has to come to terms with in the rest of the book.
September 11, 2007 at 6:39 pm
I haven’t got that far yet - Charles dealing with Melanie’s past - but the scene where he finds out has certainly been thought-provoking! I think it’s not so much that she has a past, but that she purposefully used it as a tool, even after they were married and she found she loved him (she does love him … right?)
This is also what sticks when discussing the ‘love triangle’ concept in TSP: for Marguerite to love Chauvelin would mean either that she truly gave her heart to him - which clashes with her admission that she thought it ‘not in her nature to love’ - and therefore her love for Percy is not as ’star cross’d’ as Orczy intended; or that it was just a lust-fuelled fling, which diminishes the impact of both characters for me (neither is that shallow).
I can’t comment on Melanie yet, as I haven’t finished reading, but I can’t wait to compare the two women and their marriages (in a positive light!)
Thank you for creating another beautiful and enigmatic heroine!
September 11, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Exactly. Charles could deal with her past, it’s the reasons she married him and the hidden agenda that had her working against him–and using him–during their marriage that he finds it (very understandably) hard to forgive. How Mélanie felt about Charles and how her feelings changed during the marriage becomes clearer as the book goes on (but yes, she loves him :-).
Rereading TSP it’s clear that Marguerite having been in love with Chauvelin does change her character and the nature of her falling in love with Percy. I think it can still work, but it’s a somewhat different story. In both the 1982 and 1999 adapations and in the musical, I had the sense that she did love Chauvelin (and that Chauvelin loved her). In the 1982 film, the love seems bound up with admiration for a man she admired in the early days of the Revolution. It’s the same in the musical and the 1999 series, though the affair seems a bit wilder (the song, “Our Separate Ways” from the concept album captures it quite well “Drunk on our dreams we were in those warm cafés…I was a child, I was lost in ideals..”). In all three versions, I think you could argue she loves Percy more than she loved Chauvelin, but her relationship with Chauvelin was more than a fling. As for Chauvelin, I don’t particularly like him turning on her as a vengeful, spurned lover. Imo, it diminishes him and his motivation. One thing I like in 1999 series is that Chauvelin, after his fashion, will still go a certain way toward protecting Marguerite (and Percy knows it).
Thank you for your kind words about Mélanie!
September 11, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Oh, goodness, there’s more and more surprises as I read on with Melanie - but I’m still intrigued by her! Maybe how Charles manages to come to terms with everything he has found out will be the measure of him, and then I can evaluate them as a couple, which is how I tend to view Marguerite and Percy.
As to Chauvelin in the film and series, Martin Shaw - and I can barely bring myself to type this - does handle the character better. His dangerous defence of her in the court at the end is not out of character - he stands up for his daughter in ‘Sir Percy Hits Back’ - but perhaps a little irrational (what does he have to gain?) And he is also visibly wounded when Marguerite taunts him in her prison cell, because she is right that he has nothing and she is loved and loves someone else.
Ian McKellen, for all his luvvy talents, does not convince me that he truly loves Marguerite, and I am glad when he gets it out of his system, bar checking on her reunion with Percy. His speech to her in her dressing room is so awkward and stiff that I’m not surprised she isn’t moved, and his attempt at intimacy at her soiree makes me feel ill, like an old man pawing a teenage girl! That both Chauvelin and Marguerite - unintentionally - look the same age in the series at least helps the viewer to understand their past liaison (it’s the words they both use to describe their dalliance that had me thinking it rather superficial).
On the other hand, Grant’s Percy demonstrates my theory that there can’t be the same level of love between Chauvelin and Marguerite and Marguerite and Percy if there is that triangle - there is no passion, just bitter words and later sedate contentment, between Grant and McGovern; the viewer is left thinking that maybe she should be with Chauvelin, and surely that shouldn’t be the intention of any adaptation!
September 11, 2007 at 7:57 pm
I think all Chauvelin has to gain from defending Marguerite in court in the 1999 series is possibly saving her life, which is what makes the scene so intriguing. I also love the bit in “The Kidnapped King” where Percy plays on the fact that he knows Chauvelin won’t harm Marguerite. Where Ian McKellan’s Chauvelin bothers me the most (and a lot of it’s the script, which for the most part I love) is in the denouement, where he seems far too obsessed with revenge (a lot of which seems connected to losing Marguerite to Percy) which to me weakens and over-simplifies his character. I like some of the Percy/Marguerite moments in the series–the bit on the boat at the end of TSP, the scene in the study after Rochambeau arrives, a couple of scene in “The Kidnapped King”. But the prison reunion in TSP, which should be so wonderful, doesn’t quite work. And the similar scene in the 1982 movie is so great. Interesting to think about how Chauvelin’s feelings for Marguerite balance the triangle. I do find him quite sympathetic in the series, but I never actually thought Marguerite should leave Percy for him. On the other hand, in some ways the series gives Chauvelin more of a chance to show the depth of his feelings for Marguerite–defending her in court, letting her escape. I can’t think of a moment in the series where Percy runs such a risk for Marguerite.
I’ll be fascinated to hear what you think as you read more of “Secrets of a Lady”!
September 12, 2007 at 12:27 am
Funny how so many readers accept, even demand huge flaws in *heroes* - but let a heroine do anything outside the narrow boundaries of Acceptable Behavior for Heroines, and there’s immediate consternation.
When Daughter of the Game came out there was a lot of “Can we accept Melanie as a heroine, after what she has done?” all over the message boards of my favorite book site. But much of what Melanie (and other “controversial” heroines have done) was a matter of simple *survival*. I mean, 95% of the heroines out there can’t cross the street by themselves without getting run over by a truck!
I remember one book (a Regency) where the heroine, stranded all alone on a battle field, decides that (even though she is penniless) she can’t, simply can’t take money off of the dead soldiers. Can we say “Darwin Awards”?
Sorry. This is OT, isn’t it?
Anyway. Yes, Margot has flaws. BIG ones. So does her husband - he admits that he played a part in the estrangement, and that they would never have been in the mess they got into if he had trusted her. I love that in a hero. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy the original novel - in the sequels, Percy is Super-Percy who leaps tall buildings while the League stands around him staring in awe.
September 12, 2007 at 9:50 am
Percy has his faults, throughout the stories, but his biggest flaw is central to his character: he neglects Marguerite to carry on risking his life for the League’s missions, even when she devotes herself to him. Look at the pain he - or Aramand - puts her through in Eldorado. And in Mam’zelle Guillotine, he doesn’t stop her accompanying him on a long and hazardous journey through France and Belgium - but only because he needs a woman to nursemaid two children. Yet, if Percy was as placid as Sir Andrew, he wouldn’t be Marguerite’s hero, or have won such a place in her heart. Would she have stayed with him if she had never learned that he was the Pimpernel?
I appreciate flaws in characters, male and female, but only if it serves a purpose; I also prefer ’strong’, decisive women over docile dishrags, but not just for political correctness. I always weigh in my mind whether I would have done the same in a certain situation - Marguerite’s choices are understandable, and Melanie, though her life has certainly been more of an adventure, has protected herself and secured a future for her child.
My idea of a heroine in historical romance is captured by a line from a woman in one of the Sharpe stories - she has been revealed as a French agent (aren’t they all?), but she tells Sharpe: “I’m a soldier: I can’t carry a gun, so I use what I have”. She does what she has to, but working with her femininity instead of against it.
But you’re right about the double standard, JMM. There’s a pointed line in Tracy’s book about deception and lying - which applies to Percy and Marguerite, as well as Charles and Melanie: why is Melanie’s history as a spy different or worse than Charles’? She didn’t tell him until she had to because she knew he would have reacted exactly how he did, and it would have served neither of them. I love how Charles cannot understand how she is still so familiar and yet a stranger to him; and of course their situation is magnified in TSP, as Percy doesn’t have those seven years of marriage to balance against the truth he hears (they’ve only been married a day!)
September 12, 2007 at 4:55 pm
JMM, I mentioned in my post that some of my friends had problems with Mélánie while I was wriitng the book. Another friend was frustrated with Charles, reading the book. He kept saying, “Why is he taking so long to forgive her? She was just doing her job” or words to that effect. I was intrigued to have people seeing the story and the characters from two such different perspectives,
I love the fact that Percy can admit the part he played in their estangement. That makes him very real and human, as is Marguerite. So, imo, it’s all the powerful when they can get past their estangement and trust each other.
September 12, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Sarah, fascinating question about if Marguerite would have stayed with Percy if she hadn’t learned he was the Pimpernel. Off the top of my headk, I’m inclined to think she would have, because she’s an honorable person, but she’d always have been frustated because she’d feel there was an inner core of him she couldn’t reach. What do you think?
I love the Sharpe quote (it’s Hélène, I think?). The Sharpe books have some interesting women. Teresa fights does carry a gun and fights as a soldier with the guerrielleros, which is believable given her background. There does tend to be a double-standard of what is considered acceptable behavior from women versus men, an idea that a woman’s first loyalty should be to her husband whereas a man’s should be to Crown and Country, so that their actions are viewed through different lenses–that’s part of what I was trying to explore in “Secrets of a Lady”.
September 12, 2007 at 9:32 pm
I’ve just reached the chapter where Charles is agonising over what it is about Melanie’s deception that has hurt him so much, and he believes it is not so much her past - he tells himself that he would never ask about lovers before himself, or hold her history against her (I’m more inclined to believe the friend who comes back with ‘Wait until it’s your wife’!) - as what she might have done since, and lied about. The trust has gone; I can quite understand Charles’ hesitation. In fact, I’m at a point in the book where I can’t believe he’s talking civilly to her! I love when he tells her that nothing else matters but finding Colin - and at least he knew from the beginning that he wasn’t the ‘biological’ father of his son, that would have been beyond endurance! And it obviously takes a lot for Charles to let his guard down with people - for Melanie to know that, and keep so much from him for seven years, is another trauma to deal with. I’m absolutely fascinated with this relationship, I can’t tell you!
As to Marguerite, she did stay with Percy, for a year, before she found out that he was also her romantic hero, so I suppose she would stay with him. They would live the conventional society marriage of the time: he funding her entertainment, she providing him with an heir and perhaps taking a lover. I’m not sure what keeps her with him through the estrangement - is she trapped? She can hardly return to Paris and resume her stage career, after marrying an English aristocrat and deserting her country for his. If she is holding out for Percy to become the man he once was, her lover, then she must have incredible stamina! The Richmond chapter becomes a crucial moment - would she have trespassed into his study and found the ring if he had not revealed that he was merely controlling his feelings for her? His reaction to her pleas gives Marguerite hope; perhaps she would have left for France alone, to try and save Armand, if he had maintained his mask of indifference?
And I think the Sharpe book is ‘Sharpe’s Honour’ - I’ve only seen the series, but I would like to read some of the books, particularly that one!
September 12, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Sarah, I love reading your reactions to Charles and Mélanie! I think if Charles had learned the truth in a different way, without Colin’s abduction driving both him and Mélanie, events would have played out very differently. He might have shut down, gone off to his club, refused to speak to her (though at some point they would have had to deal with the children; angry as he was, I don’t think he’d have tried to keep them away from her). The fact of Colin’s abduction forces them to work together. Charles has been an agent, he’s cool-headed enough to know what needs to be done, to realize he needs Mélanie’s help, to subdue all feelings to the need to complete the mission. That forces him to interact with her, to think things through, and to confront the issues he might shy away from. When I was plotting the book I started with the idea of Mélanie’s past. I knew I wanted her past to come to light after seven years or so of marriage, and I knew that I needed a crisis that would force the past into the open and also force Mélanie and Charles to work together. That was when I got the idea of their son being abducted.
I agree with your take on Marguerite. I think she’s stayed with Percy for a year for several reasons. To a large extent she is trapped. As you point out, the events of the Revolution make it difficult for her to return to France and resume her career. In England, if she left Percy she’d be a social outcast with no means of supporting herself. She could remain married to him but take a lover, but I think she’s still in love (without quite realizing it or even being able to acknowledge that it *is* love) with the man she married, the man behind the foppish mask. She’s still too emotionally entangled with him to become emotionatlly entangled with another man. I hadn’t thought of it before, but I think you’re right that without the emotional revelations of the Richmond terrace scene, she probably wouldn’t have gone into his study, She might have gone to France alone. Or when Chauvelin sent her Armand’s incriminating letter, she might have stayed out of it and trusted the Scarlet Pimpernel to save himself. In which case, if Percy had extricated himself, I wonder if she’d ever have learned the truth and what would have happened when she did…?
It is “Sharpe’s Honour”. I love both the Sharpe books and the tv series. Some of the filmed stories are quite different from the books, but as I recall “Sharpe’s Honour” was fairly similar.
September 15, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Have you read ‘The Painted Veil’, by Maughn? It’s yet another title on my ‘To Read’ list, because the tagline for the film piqued my interest - ‘Sometimes the greatest journey is the distance between two people’. Reviews at Amazon also describe Kitty, the wife, as a likeable yet very human heroine, and the husband as intensely complex!
September 16, 2007 at 2:07 am
When I read the book for the second time, as an adult, I remember wondering, what *exactly* was Marguerite’s big sin? I mean, she turned in a traitor to her country!
Margot was a French woman. She was a Republican; I assume Percy knew this. Her brother supposedly worked in some form for the government. St. Cyr was plotting to bring in Austrian troops to invade France. He was a traitor in her eyes.
She had no way of knowing his family would die with him (why did they?). The terror didn’t start until 1793 or 1794 and the first book is set in 1792; the prison massacres had just happened.
Some readers have gone so far as to say she “betrayed” the Marquis. You can only betray people to whom you owe loyalty.
If it was the death penalty… treason was punishable by death in every country, including merrie old England.
If it was the fact that she was a Republican, then Percy obviously wasn’t *listening* to her when he came to visit Mlle St. Just!
September 16, 2007 at 7:04 am
Sarah, I haven’t read “The Painted Veil” or seen the movie, but both are on my to be read/watched list. The tagline and Amazon comments you refer to make me even more curious! I’ve always loved stories about married couples–there’s such a fascinating emotional wealth to explore.
September 16, 2007 at 7:24 am
“When I read the book for the second time, as an adult, I remember wondering, what *exactly* was Marguerite’s big sin? I mean, she turned in a traitor to her country!”
JMM, I had that same thought on my recent re-read. Marguerite learned a man was plotting with a foreign country to invade her country. One could argue it would have been treason for her *not* to have turned him in, completely aside from his having had Armand beaten. I still can’t quite grasp people’s reactions to the whole incident in the book or even exactly how it played out. There’s a line that “the St. Cyrs were in treasonable correspondence with the Austrians”, so presumably his wife and sons were arrested and killed because they were involved in the plotting with Austria as well. Do we ever hear what happened to his daughter Angèle? That’s one place I think the 1982 film doesn’t work, because by combining TSP and Eldorado (which in all other respects I think works brilliantly), Armand falls in love with Louise when he was in love with Angèle practically a scene before.
September 16, 2007 at 9:34 am
As to Angele and Louise, I think Armand’s passion for the Marquis’ daughter was unrequited, and Louise was probably there, ‘under his nose’, all the time - she is Marguerite’s understudy at the theatre. And I think some time passes between the soiree, when he introduces her, and the first time they appear as a couple (his nightmare?) I could be wrong, I can never get the sequence straight in my mind.
I’ve always thought that Marguerite’s ’sin’, at least in Percy’s eyes, is a matter of trust - in that he doesn’t, or can’t, especially if he is the Pimpernel already at that point (is he?) It’s like Charles and Melanie in Tracy’s book - the point is not what she did, but that she didn’t tell him about it herself. He heard rumours about the St Cyrs, and that Marguerite was involved, but when he asked her if it was true, she bristled at the accusation and ran off back to her brother. All Percy heard was, ‘Yes, I denounced them’, and he is left to wonder if he really knows anything about this woman, whose actions and principles so obviously differ from his. If he’s the Pimpernel, he has to balance the secrecy of his rescue missions - and in 1791, that could only have been helping aristocrats to flee the country - with trusting his French, republican wife. The easiest solution is just to build his defences and keep her out of his heart, and this is where Percy’s contribution to the estrangement kicks in. Their mutual pride keeps them from being the first to appeal to the other for an explanation. Percy confronts her with the deaths of the St Cyrs, but he’s really asking why she didn’t open up to him then and there, instead confirming the rumour and running away; he wouldn’t have been so ready to kiss and make up, brave and noble soul aside, if he had really condemned her for her hand in the St Cyrs’ deaths.
Angele is one detail of the Grant series I did like - her reappearance has no consequence, but it nicely illustrates what has divided the Blakeneys, and it was an intriguing cameo!
September 16, 2007 at 11:42 am
I don’t think the original novel ever states if Percy was the Pimpernel before his wedding; somehow I think not. I hope not. If he was the Scarlet Pimpernel before he married Margot, then *he* owes her an even bigger!
I was so annoyed when (in the 1982 movie) he proposed to her in her dressing room so smugly, telling her she would learn everything about him - when she married him. That’s a damn big secret to keep from someone - what if she discovered she didn’t WANT to be married to a hero?
And Armand - that always bothered me; that (in the 1982 movie) he knew Percy was Pimpernel and never told his sister, although he knew she was suffering.
But when I read the book again a few years ago, I realized that Armand probably did not know the leader of the League was Percy; there is a scene early in the book where he thinks of Percy as ‘dull’ and ’slow’. And I don’t think he was *in* the League; Chauvelin only states the letter of Armand’s puts him ‘in sympathy’.
If Armand was part of the League and Percy was his trusted leader, he should have smacked him one and told him the truth.
That was an interesting scene in the Grant series, but of course, Armand was not involved with Angele in that version.
September 16, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Sarah, that make sense about Louise in the 1982 movie. It’s difficut to tell exactly how much time passes in the movie. Somehow I assumed Armand and Louise were a couple at the early party, but you’re right, they aren’t necessarily at that point. It still would have been nice to know what happened to Angèle. Funny that the one series that shows her and gives an explanation (she’s an émigré in England) is there one in which, as JMM ppints out, she isn’t involved with Armand (at least it’s never mentioned that she is).
“Their mutual pride keeps them from being the first to appeal to the other for an explanation.”
That’s a beautiful way of putting it. And that’s where the role they both play in their estangement is so very real and human. Marguerite wants Percy to love unconditionally, without questioning her actions, and is too proud to explain, Percy is too proud to ask for an explanation. And as you say, his Pimpernel disguise makes it more difficult, even dangerous, for him to do so.
Charles is also angered by the things Mélanie didn’t tell him, as you point, by the fact that he didn’t really (he feels) know the woman he married. But Mélanie also married him to spy on him so she did actively wrong him, in a way Marguerite never actively wrongs Percy.
September 16, 2007 at 5:11 pm
JMM, I assumed in the novel (including on my recent re-read) that Percy was the Pimpernel before he married Marugerite. I don’t think it’s ever explicitly stated. It’s possible the 1982 movie was coloring my perceptions (the back story of their romance that the movie shows fits quite well with the deails in the book). I think part of what made me think he was the Pimpernel before they were married was that in the book (as in the 1982 movie) Marguerite has a sense that there’s more to him behind his mask. But I suppose it could be more like the musical, where he takes up his Pimpernel advetnures for solace after his marriage falls apart. He could have set the League up during the time they were apart right after their marriage. Sarah, what do you think?
I do think in the book it’s pretty clear Armand doesn’t know Percy is the Pimpernel (from the way he thinks about Percy, as you say). I could sort of understand Percy not revealing to Marguerite that he’s the Pimpernel in the 1982 movie–he’s trying to keep his secret indentity (on which the lives of scores of others rest) while at the same time he’s fallen desperately in love. I think he’d had told her the truth after they got to England if he hadn’t learned about the St. Cyrs (of course, you’re right, she did deserve the chance to know the sort of man she was marrying). And the part that particularly annoys me is that he can reveal the truth to Armand (who is working for Chauvelin) and yet still keep it hidden from the woamn he is about the marry.
September 16, 2007 at 5:44 pm
I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve added this topic to the demmed_elusive forum, too - I’m interested in what other fans think of Marguerite’s role in their estrangement!
As to Percy as the Pimpernel, the ambiguity of the novel has always bothered me - such an important detail as why he chose to take up this dual life is never actually covered! Like his marriage to Marguerite, the story opens with the fact already established. A friend and I decided that he is the Pimpernel, even if he is just helping family friends and acquaintances to escape the dangers in Paris - the first execution by guillotine was in 1792, the September massacres heralded the lust for blood and revenge, and the Terror began in 1793, as JMM stated. And of course, when ‘justice’ becomes a synonym for death, Percy and the League are already on hand to increase their activities!
In TSP, Marguerite wonders: “Perhaps he had meant to tell her when they were first married; and then the story of the Marquis de St. Cyr had come to his ears, and he had suddenly turned from her, thinking, no doubt, that she might someday betray him and his comrades, who had sworn to follow him”. Plus, Percy has more reason to mistrust her if he is the Pimpernel - she is apparently capable of demanding a life as revenge for personal humiliation; what if she turns against a family he has promised to rescue? How would she react?
I think you’re right that the 1982 film makes Percy more attractive - to Marguerite and to the audience - by establishing him as the Pimpernel before he meets her; in the 1934, 1999 and Broadway versions, it’s not clear why a woman like Marguerite would be drawn to Percy if there wasn’t already that intense and mysterious side to him. It also gives him a reason to shut her out as he does. If he becomes the Pimpernel to try and redeem her actions, then it is because she supposedly sent the Marquis to his death that he rejected her, and yet he still loves her - there should be a reason for his vulnerability.
September 16, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Sarah, I just noticed that you added the topic to the demmed_elusive forum (http://community.livejournal.com/demmed_elusive/), and I think that’s super. Thanks! I’d also love to get more takes on it. I’ll post over there after a few more people have weighed in.
This line you quoted “Perhaps he had meant to tell her when they were first married; and then the story of the Marquis de St. Cyr had come to his ears, and he had suddenly turned from her, thinking, no doubt, that she might someday betray him and his comrades, who had sworn to follow him”.” does make it clear Marguerite thinks he was the Pimpernel before they were married, which implies the Pimpernel’s activities were already known at the time. Since Orczy never provides an alternate explanation, I think we can assume Marguerite is supposed to be right. It fits better with the facts we’re given in the story, I think. And it means, as JMM points out, that Percy is lying to/witholding information from Marguerite when they marry, which adds an interesting layer.
September 16, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Yes, it’s not the best start to a marriage, is it? I never really thought of that angle until reading your book! I wonder why Percy didn’t tell her before they were married, assuming he was planning on doing so, as Marguerite imagines? She is furiously trying to undo what she has done up until their wedding day, almost, and it is very much in character for her to let fate decide what happens, but he seems to be testing her - can he trust her? I like that he finds it hard to trust people, and such a suspicious nature fits well with his upbringing, but he can hardly judge Marguerite at the same time. An excellent point!
September 16, 2007 at 6:24 pm
I think they’re both testing each other–Marguerite is testing Percy to see if he loves her unconditionally, Percy is testing her to see if he can trust her. Excellent point about Percy’s upbringing. We never quite know the nature of his mother’s insanity. But it’s possible she was very mercurial, that her moods would change abruptly, that she’d forget promises, etc… A boy brought up in that environment would be all the more ready to believe someone he loved could change before his eyes, that promises couldn’t be trusted, that loyalty couldn’t be relied upon.
September 17, 2007 at 12:03 am
I personally don’t think Percy was the Pimpernel before his marriage - but that’s just my opinion. I’d like to think he didn’t marry her before telling her something like that.
The fact that Margot sensed there was more to him than his fop persona doesn’t mean he was the Pimpernel. Percy’s “mask” may have simply been his method of coping with a difficult life and upbringing. Playing the clown is a well-known coping mechanism.
As for Percy and his apparent inability to see Margot as a French Republican? In “I Will Repay”, he makes a beautiful speech about the dangers of idolizing a woman, rather than loving her as a human being. I think that’s a direct reference to his relationship with Margot.
I think it was easy for him to avoid the reality of her Republican sympathies while courting her, because he didn’t actually see her as a flesh and blood woman, but as his idol.
September 17, 2007 at 8:32 am
I’m not sure it has anything to do with republican sympathies. It is not the denouncement that bothers either Marguerite and Percy: as somebody at the demmed_elusive forum has posted, Marguerite is disturbed that she was responsible for the deaths of a family, and Percy is shaken that she refused to offer an explanation. Marguerite and Percy are primarily humanitarians, rather than republicans and royalists; human life is more important to them than political principles.
But you and Dorthe are right - just as she fell in love with the idea of being in love, Percy saw what he wanted to see in Marguerite, his ‘angel’, who only became real to him when he learned that she too had suffered, and that they had both made the mistake of not trusting the other with their secrets.
September 17, 2007 at 8:42 am
Interesting and believable take on when Percy became the Pimpernel, JMM. I could see it working that way (your certainly right that his upbringing could well account for his “mask”). I’m still inclined to believe he was the Pimpernel before they met-mostly because that’s what Marguerite seems to believe in the lines Sarah quoted, and the books give us no reason to believe Marguerite is wrong. I would be interesting to read two different back stories and then see how events of TSP seem in the light of each.
Sarah, I really liked that post on demmed_elusive (I’m going over there to post as soon as I get my weekly website update done). Neither Percy nor Marguerite is seeing the other one clearly at first. And then their pride and inabiltiy to trust gets in the way. So interesting that Marguerite marries a man she doesn’t know in so many ways and that Percy too falls in love with an ideal who doesn’t really become a flesh and blood, flawed, human person to him until after they are married.
September 19, 2007 at 2:43 pm
I can recommend The Painted Veil film adaptation for any fans of TSP, or indeed just complex characters in romances! I am currently reading the book, too, but apparently the film has been sweetened - Kitty looks to have been redeemed by Hollywood.
Kitty and Walter Fane’s marriage is similar to Percy and Marguerite’s, and there are some wistfully romantic passages from Kitty, describing her first impressions of the man she marries out of convenience - the repressed passion in his otherwise cold eyes, his delight when she accepts his terse proposal.
I wonder if this could not be the alternative TSP, if Marguerite had never discovered her husband’s secret? Kitty is also unsure of what love is when she marries - until she meets another man - but I like to believe that Marguerite did love Percy at first, even if she wasn’t *in* love (or couldn’t tell the difference). If Percy had maintained his mask of polite indifference, would Marguerite have been receptive to love elsewhere, do you think?
September 19, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Sarah, I just watched the film of “The Painted Veil” last night and started to read the book (haven’t got far). Thanks for the suggestion! The movie was very, very good but does seem to have been made a bit more romantic than the book. I can definitely see an interesting parallel to Marguerite and Percy (i was also thinking about Mélanie and Charles, simply because of the complexities of forgiving). I do think Marguerite loved Percy, without quite realizing it or being able to articulate it, before tey were married, whereas I don’t think the same if true of Kitty and Walter. And I think Percy, during their courtship, was more demonstrative than Walter. As to what would have happened if Percy had maintained his mask of indifference–I don’t think Marguerite lightly would have turned to another man (I think she’s still too emotionally entangled with Percy). But loneliness and emotional isolation can drive people to seek comfort where they can find it and she’s living in a society where infidelity was commonplace, so I think it’s certainly possible.
September 19, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Great minds! I saw the film last night, too, and started reading the book today. I think I prefer the film, from what I’ve heard of the book, but I do like the angst - and Kitty is very believable in her reasoning, justifying to herself what comes across as selfish behaviour to the reader. I love how she cries for the effect, admitting, if only inwardly, that she wants sympathy and protection. Very honest writing, if not honourable! And there’s a scene where she and Charles are going to a dinner party which put me very much in mind of the early chapters in TSP - Kitty ready with a sarcastic retort and a smile, Walter supplying terse replies (and I liked the detail of his usual ’smiling glances’ at her, which Kitty misses later); his repeated protest of ‘But I loved you’ is also very touching, when he finally confronts her. Do you think he actually did love Kitty, or, like Percy, love the idea of her?
September 19, 2007 at 6:09 pm
I meant Kitty and Walter are going to a dinner party, obviously, not Charles - that’s where comparing different texts and characters gets me: severely muddled!
September 19, 2007 at 7:19 pm
I like the angst too, and the honesty. Based on the film (haven’t read enough of the book yet to have an opinion), I think Walter saw Kitty more clearly when he married her than Percy did Marguerite. Walter says he knew she thoughtless and self-centered, that she married him to get away from her mother. He loved her and wanted her anyway. That’s rather different from Percy putting Marguerite on a pedestal and idolizing her. The film was quite heart-breaking.
September 19, 2007 at 8:02 pm
I agree with you about the film - I was expecting so many different nasty surprises, but I somehow didn’t see that coming; perhaps because of the traditional outcome for wrong-doer and wronged. And for once, possibly because I saw the film first, I prefer that the film takes a different perspective: Kitty and Walter are so fragile and cautious in the film, that even though they are reunited and their misjudgements redeemed, I believed in them and wanted them to be happy. Kitty’s last bombshell would perhaps be too much for Walter to take - Norton played that scene well - but I thought a different tragic outcome was about to present itself; I was shocked at what did happen!
Walter has a rather Percy-esque line in the book: ‘I was thankful to be allowed to love you’. Yet it’s almost as if his situation is the reverse of Percy’s - he saw the very human truth of Kitty all too plainly, and loved her irrespectively, whereas Percy saw only a goddess and loved his own vaulted image of her; both are blinded by love, and pay little heed to the real woman. More fascinating characters!
September 19, 2007 at 9:28 pm
I knew the ending but kept hoping until the last that the film would end differently :-). I’d have liked to see them have to work things through in the light of Kitty’s last bombshell (Norton did play that scene beautifully!).
“Walter has a rather Percy-esque line in the book: ‘I was thankful to be allowed to love you’. Yet it’s almost as if his situation is the reverse of Percy’s - he saw the very human truth of Kitty all too plainly, and loved her irrespectively, whereas Percy saw only a goddess and loved his own vaulted image of her; both are blinded by love, and pay little heed to the real woman.”
Interesting idea and beautifully put! Walter also doesn’t see the complete Kitty or at least her potential to grow because he’s surprised by her capacity for compassion and hard work when she helps out at the convent. Fascinating characters indeed!
September 28, 2007 at 10:50 pm
I read that the book is very different from the movie - and that Kitty has a scene where she exposes Walter’s “love” for her as a sham. I haven’t read it yet.
Percy demonstrative? We know he *kissed* Marguerite during their courtship, which is as far as an Edwardian novel was going to go.
The baroness is rather subtle, but there are several sensual scenes in the books that show Margot and Percy are sexually attracted to one another. He was obviously a passionate “lover” while courting Margot, even if they never made love. I mean, to get Marguerite to marry him when it’s stated in the book that she had other choices, meant he really, really courted her.
That’s one reason I don’t think he was the Pimpernel before the marriage. I don’t see him as rescuing people and chasing Margot around Paris, although the 1982 movie has it this way. Just an opinion.
September 29, 2007 at 4:57 am
I haven’t finished reading “The Painted Veil” yet (though I did read it on the plane ride to and from Disneyland–it was an intriguing contrast to Sleeping Beauty’s Castle and the world of Happily Ever after :-). So far Walter is glimpsed mostly through Kitty’s eyes, but from what I’ve heard about it, the movie version if much more of a love story. It will be interesting to compare when I finish the book.
As to Percy, I thnk you’re right. Things are worded subtly in the book, but there are lines such as “that his passion might have been dormant, but that it was there, as strong, as intense, as overwhelming, as when first her lips met his in one long, maddening kiss”. I get the sense that Percy was quite demonstrative (though gentlemanly) during their courtship, so that his coldness after their marriage is a marked departure. Rereading the book, I thought the backstory fleshed out in the 1982 movie worked pretty well with the hints in the book of what happened. In both the film and the book, I had the sense that they didn’t actually make love before they were married (which does rather make one wonder what went on between them after their marriage).
October 1, 2007 at 10:00 am
I wondered, too, so I helped the Baroness out
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2909301/1/After_the_Ball
Pardon the writing; it ain’t classical, I know, but I hope I’ve honoured and not insulted!
October 1, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Sarah, I * love* your story! You capture the tone of the books and Percy’s and Marguerite’s characters brilliantly! That’s exactly how I envision Marguerite and Percy post TSP. But I do wonder about during their estrangement. If they didn’t make love before their marriage (and somehow I don’t think they did, mostly because Percy is such an English gentleman), they would have had no chance to do so until the estangement began. Were they intimate during the early part of their marriage when Percy was wearing such a mask of indifference? Or had they never actually slept together at the time of TSP? Or were they lovers during their courtship but not after their marriage? It’s hard to read the book or see one of the adaptations and not wonder :-).
October 1, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Well, I was once shot down in flames for considering the possibility that they might have consummated their love instead of their marriage - and it’s a fair point that Percy is probably that much of a traditionalist to respect Marguerite, and she would have been shrewd enough not to offer too much too soon! Percy found out about the St Cyrs twenty four hours after their wedding, so I’ve always written in that they did have a wedding night - and that would really confirm their love for each other; Percy’s maddening kisses are all well and good, but wouldn’t the memory fade for Marguerite after a year of estrangement?
I don’t think their would have been any marital relations during that year - I doubt Percy could have maintained the pretence in such intimate circumstances, and he’s ever the gentleman (he wouldn’t insist on his ‘right’ if he couldn’t show her that he still loved her).
October 2, 2007 at 12:07 am
I can imagine them being lovers before their marriage (the McGovern/Grant version implies they were), but on the whole between Percy being a traditional English gentleman and Marguerite apparently not having had any prior lovers, I’m inclined to think they probably weren’t. I’d somehow missed that it was twenty-four hours before Percy found out about the St. Cyrs. Somehow I thought it was at/right after the wedding (perhaps because of the Andrews/Seymour version). The idea that they had a real wedding night and then both retreated from intimacy makes a lot of sense.
October 6, 2007 at 10:26 am
Are film characters included? I was watching ‘Gilda’, with Rita Hayworth, recently, and I think she is the first ‘imperfect character’ whose behaviour I didn’t feel the need to justify; Glenda is infinitely more believable, and stronger, when she is playing both her husband, George McReady, and her former lover, Glenn Ford, against each other, than at the end of the film, when she is tritely redeemed and reunited with Ford (although I appreciate the similarities with TSP, as Glenda tells Ford ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ when he tells her that he has done everything wrong and wants to be with her). I would normally have preferred the double standard of Gilda’s redemption - she pretended to have a string of affairs, but was merely taunting Ford - but here I felt that her dubious past was important for her to survive the possessive treatment of her husband and lover; that the men were weaker than Gilda, and responded to her lack of fidelity by trying to control her. Plus, Hayworth’s dialogue is a lot sharper when she is enjoying herself, and not being tortured by Ford!
October 6, 2007 at 10:27 am
Pardon the stray ‘Glenda’ in there - don’t know where that came from!
October 6, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Film characters are definitely included (and plays, tv shows, operas–anything with a story). I’ve never seen “Gilda” , but I did see a preview for it at the old movie theater my family went to a lot. I remember asking my mom how it ended (because Gilda looked like just the sort of heroine who always has a tragic ending; it always annoyed me that the most interesting characters–especially the women–often seemed to have sad endings). I was pleasantly surprised when my mom told me it had a happy ending. Defintiely a movie I should look for on dvd–thanks for mentioning it!
October 6, 2007 at 9:17 pm
I trust the preview wasn’t for the original release?
If the film had remained faithful to the character development, Gilda should probably have had a tragic ending, but I didn’t mind too much that everything was resolved - as I say, I like that Glenn Ford’s character has to admit his own mistakes first, and then Gilda tells him that neither have to apologise as they’ve both been in the wrong. The last quarter of the film is actually pretty weak, but the dialogue, costumes, sexual chemistry and humour more than balance out the plot - and Rita Hayworth dominates every scene from her first appearance, flipping her hair back and beaming broadly at the camera. I recommend this, too!
October 7, 2007 at 6:05 am
“I trust the preview wasn’t for the original release? ”
Note my careful reference above to “old movie theater” :-). My family went to old movies a lot when I was growing up. There were several great theaters in San Francisco that showed them regularly (some of them are still there, though fewer in the days of videos and dvds). They’d have original-run previews for the movies that were coming up. Somehow we saw the “Gilda” preview but not the actual movie. Definitley curious about it now. Was “Gilda” based on a novel?
October 7, 2007 at 8:44 pm
No, I think Gilda was merely a vehicle for Rita Hayworth, which is all the more surprising because she’s a very interesting character who certainly stirs the imagination! That’s not to say the film doesn’t have its ‘cheesecake’ moments, indulging in Rita Hayworth as Rita Hayworth, but I can always find a deeper angle in anything!
October 7, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I did some googling, and it turns out it was based on a short story by E.A. Ellington. I wonder if the story ended the same way, or if they gave it a happy ending for the movie?
October 10, 2007 at 3:48 am
“As to Marguerite, she did stay with Percy, for a year, before she found out that he was also her romantic hero, so I suppose she would stay with him. They would live the conventional society marriage of the time: he funding her entertainment, she providing him with an heir and perhaps taking a lover.”
Oddly enough; I see Margot as simply leaving Percy rather than taking a lover and staying in a conventional marriage. I’m not certain why, since no Victorian heroine could do something like that. But if she were written today, I do think she’d be the type to leave, perhaps with a lover of her own, rather than stay.
October 10, 2007 at 7:35 am
I could see her doing that, JMM, particularly if she could have gone back to France and resumed her career, which she might have done after the Reign of Terror. In England she’d have had no way to support herself. I suppose she could have tried to go on the stage in England, but I think it would be more difficult to do as Percy Blakeney’s estranged wife. Or she could have run off with a lover and let him support her. This ties in well with the discussion on my blog this week on Alternate Endings.