Significance of Age in Novels - Essay Example

SIGNIFICANCE OF AGE IN THE FOLLOWING NOVELS: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN AND S ON A SCANDAL Introduction s on a Scandal (2003) by Zoë Heller tells the story of an illicit affair between a high school teacher(Sheba Hart) and her student (Steven) through the eyes of Sheba’s supposed friend, Barbara Covett. It was short listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize for fiction, and has been released as a feature film. It is basically a book about the relationship between the domineering older woman Barbara and the young and attractive Sheba. No Country for Old Men (2005) is a bloody thriller by Cormac McCarthy which has also been adapted to the screen. The film won the Oscar for Best Picture. It follows the efforts and failure of the fiftiesh Sheriff Ed Tom Bell to protect a younger Llewellyn Moss and his wife from the assassins (mainly Anton Chigurh) sent after him to recover the drug money he picked from the desert. Both novels are totally different in genre and both tackle the issue of age and its significance in human perspectives differently. Notes on a Scandal - Summary In the novel Notes on a Scandal (2003) the main protagonist is Barbara Covett, is a schoolteacher and a spinster. Barbara is a woman used to living a solitary life, as she has no close friends and no family.  She is only just tolerated by her less brilliant and caustic colleagues who know zilch about her personal life which consists mostly of taking care of Portia, her old cat, and spending innumerable hours alone. Barbara is neither a trustworthy nor an impartial first-person narrator. A lonely, spinster in her early sixties, she is keen to find a special, close friend. Yet, she reveals that she has been incapable to make an earlier friendship last as she was blamed of being possessive, dictatorial and demanding. Her previous friend a colleague Jennifer Dodd even threatened her with a restriction order if she tried to contact her again; episodes like this progressively reveal just how psychologically unhinged Barbara is. When the bohemian Sheba Hart joins the faculty of St. Georges school, Barbara straight away senses that they might become good friends. Barbara gradually learns that Sheba is almost 41 and married with two children and that her son, Ben, has Down syndrome and her seventeen year old daughter attends a private boarding school. Her deceased father was an important scholar and economist. Sheba is rich and leads an apparently fulfilled individual and family life. Barbara and Sheba eventually become acquainted and later, Sheba invites Barbara for lunch with her family. Barbara is thrilled and the invitation is given huge significance: “I wondered if I ought to make some nod to the notion of having to consult my diary. But I thought better of it. I didnt want to risk her glimpsing the white wastelands of my appointmentless weeks.” (Heller, 2003) But unknown to Barbara, Sheba falls in love with a fifteen year old student, Steven Connolly, who is from a deprived background. Even though they often have sex right from the beginning of their affair, the suspect couple successfully conceals their affair from everyone. When Sheba invites Barbara to dinner, she tells Barbara an extremely censored version of her affair with Connolly, averring that he has only tried to kiss her and that she rebutted him. Barbara gives her some advice on handling the boy, and believes the matter closed. Sheba admits to Barbara that despite her seemingly charmed life, she feels mentally and creatively unfulfilled and that her life has in some way been wasted on raising her children. Sheba has a thorny relationship with her mutinous daughter, whose youth and good looks only deepen her own feelings of aging. Her lecturer spouse, Richard, is considerably older than she is and their liaison sometimes has a father-daughter sense to it. Barbara cannot comprehend Shebas grievance, feeling that the latter has a full and exciting life. Shebas remarks on raising children particularly vex the childless and unmarried Barbara. When Barbara eventually finds out about the affair between Sheba and Steven she feels betrayed She is angered and hurt by Shebas fixation with Steven and her relative disregard of their friendship. The power dynamics in the relationship between Steven and Sheba are changing, with Stevens interest in the affair declining as Shebas grows. Sheba becomes more dependent and starts writing love letters to Steven. Barbara becomes progressively angrier with Shebas needy behavior. When, Brian Bangs, a co-teacher, asks Barbara to have Saturday lunch with him she accepts although she realizes that his interest in her is not sincere. During the date, Bangs admits to his fascination with Sheba. Barbara recognizes that he is using her to learn more about Shebas private life. Barbaras anger and resentment at her own fate, and her mal-treatment by Sheba get the better of her and she hints at Shebas secret: "Sheba likes younger men, you know. Much younger men. I paused a moment. I mean, you are aware of her unusually close relationship with one of the Year Eleven boys?” (Heller, 2003) later on, she is wracked with remorse but does not tell Sheba anything. Instead, she trusts Bangs will not report Sheba. Meanwhile Shebas relationship with her teenage daughter gets worse. Pollys wild behavior results in her eviction from her boarding school. Polly accuses Sheba of having an affair. Sheba is livid about the allegation, thinking that she has hidden her affair successfully. However, the headmaster is somehow informed about the illegitimate affair; it is implied in the novel that the culprit is Bangs. Sheba is fired from her job and charged with assault on a student. Her husband Richard demands that she leave and stops her from seeing her children, particularly Ben, except on exceptional occasions and only if overseen by a chaperone. Her daughter Polly refuses to have anything to do with her. Even as Shebas life is rapidly disintegrating, Barbara blossoms in the new state of affairs, which she regards as her chance to prove her friendship, even though the headmaster forces her into premature retirement. Barbara gives up her own small flat and moves with Sheba into provisional lodging in Shebas brothers house. Sheba finds Barbaras documents and realizes that she has been writing an account of her affair with Steven. She is distressed and furious, especially because Barbara has written about things she did not herself witness, and made verdicts about people dear to Sheba. The story ends with Sheba, ensnared and demoralized, resigned to Barbaras existence in her life. We do know what happens in the trial, or what is the outcome of her friendship with Barbara. No Country for Old Men - Summary No Country for Old Men (2005) is a thriller novel by American novelist Cormac McCarthy. In the early 1980’s, Sheriff Bell presides over his little south Texas border district. In twenty years he has sent only one convict to death row and has never killed anyone himself. he is secure in the belief that "it takes very little to govern good people” A local welder Llewellyn Moss has, while out hunting near the desert, stumbled across the corpses of a half dozen drug runners who have finished each other off during a drug deal gone bad. Moss discovers and makes off with a bag containing more than two million dollars in cash he finds near the site of the massacre. Moss, although a past sniper during Vietnam, is himself oblivious that the bag contains a radio transponder. Due to his lack of caution the drug dealers bosses recognize him, Moss and his young wife are forced to flee from both the rival cartels hit men who have been sent to recover the money, and Sheriff Bell finds himself tackling a surge of violence the likes of which he has never before experienced. The sheriff is disturbed by his actions in World War II, in which he abandoned his unit to die for which he mistakenly received a Bronze Star. Now in his late fifties, Tom Bell has spent most of his life trying to make up for the past when he was a twenty one year old fighter. He makes it his mission to resolve the case and help Moss. A crafty psychopath named Anton Chigurh is the villain of the story. Carson Wells, a rival hit man and ex-partner of Chigurh, is also on the trail of the money. Chigurhs loyalty is questionable but his resolve to recover the cash is inexorable. Armed with a collection of homemade weapons such as a cattle shotgun and a coffee-can silencer etc.and with an eccentric idealistic conviction that he is simply an agent of fate, Chigurh systematically murders anyone who gets in his way. He also kills with chilling efficiency anyone whose innocent remarks annoy him, or whose transport, uniforms or radios might be useful to him As the two cartels clash around him, Chigurh relentlessly hunts down Moss and his wife even as Bell tries to save, contact and convince the runaway couple of the jeopardy they are in. Moss is certain that his military experience and competence with firearms will allow him to fend off his pursuers, and his young wife is persuaded by her husbands bravado; a belief which ultimately proves to have terrible consequences. The novel ends with the death of Moss and the Sheriffs dream in which he sees his father giving him some money which he loses and riding into the night to light a fire. It is implied that the Bell has failed to keep his community safe and thus is a defeated man. (Marty, 2006) Significance of Age in Notes on a Scandal The novel focuses on different age groups and their inter-relationships. The first major relationship is that of the old spinster Barbara and relatively young Sheba, and the second are the illicit relations of Sheba with a fifteen year old student Steven. Even the spouse of the protagonist Sheba is twenty years older to her. It seems all the relationships in the novel have skewed age gaps. Barbara is old and solitary, her sour nature drives everyone away she was earlier in a friendship with another female teacher but has driven her away with her possessiveness and authoritarian nature. She is basically an old woman afraid of old age and her own loneliness She is attracted to Sheba and develops a friendship with her. Barbara has been brought up conservatively and cannot adjust to the modern day social environment in which everything goes. However her nature is both manipulative and possessive and she is jealous of Sheba’s family and other relationships. This leads her to blackmailing Sheba when she discovers her affair with a minor student. The author highlights Barbara’s willful self deception and moral dilemma she faces in her desperation for a companion; Barbara is the one who betrays Sheba to a colleague who later reports the matter to the headmaster. At the end of the novel she gladly leaves her job to move in with Sheba who is separated from her family, suspended from work and facing charges for having sexual relations with a minor and student. The second relationship that of Sheba and young Steven is even more controversial. The teacher student affair highlights Sheba’s insecurities about aging and losing her feminine identity to that of a mother and wife. She is willing to use and abuse a minor just to affirm her own sense of worth. Even when Steven tires of the affair she insists on continuing it. Both women display a disregard for criminality of their actions and justify themselves on various grounds which showcase their self-centeredness. Significance of Age in No Country for Old Men In this novel the McCarthy describes the difference between the values of the older generation represented by Sheriff Bell and the new materialistic generation represented by the likes of the greedy and over confident Llewellyn Moss and psychopath Chigurh. The author is ingeniously conveying that no matter how much you struggle, times are continuously changing and there is naught that can be done to stop it. Being a sheriff, it seemed to Ed Tom Bell that he had opposed almost every type of criminal found in Terrell County, Texas. He realizes how wrong he is after coming across Anton Chigurh, the man who proves that “...the world was goin to hell in a hand-basket...” (McCarthy, 2005) The bloodshed breaking out around him forces Sheriff Bell to reconsider his own ability and readiness to deal with this fresh form of criminal violence. The aged lawman, who follows an informal code of honor belonging to older generations, doubts whether he is any longer suitable to his work. This new age requires an equally vicious response which he is unwilling to assemble lest he "set his soul at hazard” McCarthy illuminates Bells old world helplessness in the face of the new world aggressiveness embodied by Anton Chigurh who embodies the callousness of the younger generation. He kills with impunity and is relentless in his pursuit of Moss. Moss himself also defines the greed and lack of values that is prevalent in the younger men, he takes the loot he finds and is running for his life. His greed is what brings the wave of crime and horror to Sheriff Bell’s county. Comparison The most striking difference between the novels Notes on a Scandal and No Country for Old Men is both in their genre and gender addressed by them. The former is social commentary about the lives of two women and the latter is a bloody tale of men and violence. That said both the novels although dealing with age related issues such as values of the older generation and the lack of them in the young people. The novels look at different age groups and the inter relations, they also describes how the aging characters deal with their status in life, some with honor and resignation and others with hysterical fear and obsessive relationships. Notes on a Scandal is focused on the old spinster Barbra who is lonely and desperate for companionship whereas Sheriff Bell in No Country for Old Men is a happily married man with good relations with his community. Bell does not suffer from loneliness and a sense of displacement because of a lack of companionship but due to the changing moral codes in which there is no honor left among men. He is essentially an honorable man with a strict moral code and a sense of responsibility towards his community. But Barbra is the quintessential spinster with a cat who cannot connect with her community due to her domineering and somewhat prissy nature. Her sense of loneliness and displacement are not connected to changing moral values but her own aging and solitary existence. In fact she does not have any scruples in blackmailing and reporting Sheba to get control over their relationship. In No Country for Old Men the younger generation is represented by the evil of Anton Chigurh and the greed of Moss while the youngsters of Notes on a Scandal namely Sheba and Steven are both only interested in satisfaction of their carnal desire irrespective of the immorality of their actions. Unlike Barbara who has suppressed her (homo) sexuality to confirm to conservative values, Sheba has no qualms in cheating her husband and using a minor and a student to fulfill her desires. Even after being caught by Barbara she keeps returning to her relation with Steven, even when his interest in her wanes, until finally Barbara betrays her. Anton has his own philosophy in life according to which he justifies his murders; Hes a strict, meticulous, self-trained psychopath who carefully maintains his philosophy of evil. Hes cleansed himself of all qualms and misgivings so as to function efficiently. When in doubt which Chigurh rarely is, he shoots the victim point-blank, or punctures his brow with a pneumatic device designed for butchering cattle. Whereas the older Bell subscribes to the ancient philosophy of the sanctity of human life, this difference in opinions leads to the Sheriff’s belief that he has outlived his usefulness and that he cannot cope with the new breed of criminals. Barbra on the other hand suffers no qualms about blackmailing her younger colleague to evade her own loneliness. Bell in fact represents the hopelessness of an old man out of his element whereas Barbra represents the extent to which an old spinster can go to get companionship. A hysterical, neurotic shrew who had so retreated into seclusion that mere friendship could not assuage her fears of growing old. In fact she needed to possess and own the very soul she claims to offer her friendship to. Conclusion No Country for Old Men follows Sheriff Bell who is a confident old man in the beginning of the novel but eventually loses his confidence to deal with the new breed of criminals he is facing. He is a principled man who believes in the goodness of men. He ends up a defeated and disillusioned old man who fails to save Moss from the psychopath criminal Anton Chigurh. McCarthy also details the immorality, greed and viciousness of the younger men in the form of the assassins and their target Moss, who keeps the money he finds to himself instead of giving it up to the law, which leads to his eventual death. Another very striking difference between the two novels is the sex of the characters and their sexual orientations. McCarthy’s characters are straight and the older guys are shown as moral and upright citizens, but there is little focus on the women young or old and their roles in the novel are merely that of props. Notes on a Scandal is focused on the emotions of older women protagonists Barbara and Sheba. They are not evil per se but are self centered women afraid of aging and involved in disastrous relationships to boost their egos. Their friendship is of an unhealthy ad obsessive kind on the part of Barbara and an uneasy one on Sheba’s side. Barbara is an older woman who latches on to younger women to allay her loneliness; she has none of the honor of old Sheriff Bell and betrays Sheba’s secret when she is miffed at the latter for ignoring her for her young lover. Sheba is also afraid of old age and feels she has wasted her life on her children. She is also jealous of her own daughter Polly and resents her youth and beauty. Her only concern is for herself and the fulfillment of her desires. She feels no shame in having sex with a minor and student as long as it provides her with a fix of feeling sexy and wanted. Moss, in McCarthy’s novel, on the other hand is portrayed as morally upright. He is happily married and also refuses the repeated propositioning by a young female hitch hiker. It is very clear that there is no similarity between the treatment of age and its significance in the novels No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy and Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller. Bibliography Heller, Zoë (2003) Notes on a Scandal, Penguin McCarthy, Cormac (2005) No Country for Old Men, Picador Ed. Priola, Marty (2006) No County for Old Men: Review Read More