Hey...
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My teacher said it was one of my better ones, but she didn't say what was wrong with it.
I have typed it exactly as I wrote it, so please critique style as well.
‘The Lieutenant explores the choices characters make when confronted with circumstances that are unfamiliar.’ Discuss.
Set against a backdrop of imperialistic expansion, Kate Grenville’s “The Lieutenant” uses an intricate web of characters to explore how conscience and training guide our choices in unfamiliar circumstances. Throughout The Lieutenant, individual’s responses to foreign situations are diverse and often antipodal, however, alongside the mainly negative and conflictual reactions sparkles Rooke’s pacificatory actions. Grenville uses Rooke as a stranger amongst his own people to highlight how people react out of fear, or just fall back on their training, or “…take the grain of life and twist it” to make truly voluntary decisions based on the humans inherent understanding of right and wrong.
Grenville almost satirizes the “mighty Imperial machine” by portraying Governor Gilbert as a fearful old man practically inept for leading such a colony. The governors fear of the unknown is so palpable it infects the colony, and is his motivation for ordering the kidnapping of Boinbar and Wurragin, that “shocking bad thing to do”. Without a means of “fruitful intercourse” with the natives, the Governor has “no way of knowing their intentions” and cannot truly indicate that a “new master” had come upon the natives “demesne”. Furthermore, Grenville portrays the hypocrisy of the governor on a number of occasions, most notably just before Brugden, “the governor’s man” is stoned on the expedition to “Rose hill”. His comment to Rooke, part of the old cliché, “when in Rome” insinuates that he is planning to do as the natives, whereas he is entirely possessed with the of “civilising” them. Even this is hypocrisy, because it is revealed to the reader through violent imagery that under the skin of the “Grand machine of Civilisation” it is just cruelty, and that anyone who thoughtlessly does their duty is part of that cruelty.
Cruelty and the British Empire seem to go hand in hand in the 18th Century. As Rooke puts it, “the service of his majesty and the serving of humanity where not [necessarily] congruent”. The sense of duty is so deeply ingrained the characters of the text that many are able to merely fall back on their training whilst experiencing alien environments. Many characters display this trait, including both the protagonist and the antagonist, as well as minor characters like Gardiner and Lennox. This trait is clearly evidenced on the deck of the ‘Resolution’ during the Battle of Chesapeake Bay. Rooke merely acted out “…what they taught you”, by “reloading…stepping up to the rail… [and] discharging it at the smoke opposite”. The graphic imagery of Private Truby “glued to the deck” by “the shambles of his own flesh and entrails” brings the reader into the action and imparts to them the fear of the situation. Silk is present at the battle but “fear took everyone a different way” and Silk and Rooke are vastly different in their interpretation of duty. This is primarily displayed through Silk inveigling Rooke into being “of the party”. Both are “… as you might say, aware…” that Rooke is “too fond of a native girl to obey an order” but Silk cajoles him never the less, clearly more focused on his duty to his king than his duty to his fellow humans. This ill-fated expedition and Rooke’s deeply disturbing thoughts at the close of it, as to how to cut off a head, fully highlight the differences between Rooke and Silk, as protagonist and antagonist in the conflict between duty and conscience.
“Begin as you mean to go on” Rooke is taught, and practically form birth is known as “man of system, a man of science”. This lust for science leads him to learn the language of the natives, unlocking the key to “fruitful intercourse”. This familiarity with the indigenous people leads to situations that, whilst unfamiliar to the majority of the “Berewalgal”, are somewhat familiar to him. Thus, circumstances that are truly unfamiliar occur more often amongst his own kind then amongst the natives, leading Rooke to make his choices increasingly in keeping with his conscience rather than his duty. This culminates in his ultimately stating that he would “not obey another” of the Governor’s corrupted orders. Rooke acting on his conscience is not a spur of the moment, but is developed for the reader throughout the entire novel. Even back at school, with it’s “boastful cupola” and “grandiose columns”, Rooke is disquieted by the idea of humans owning humans “like animals”. Although this idea is further fermented in Antigua, it is Gardiner who fully cements it, when describing the “the hardest duty” he was asked to perform. Gardiners outcry as to “…savages, we call them savages…” is entirely in keeping with Rooke’s thoughts, and this knowledge that he was “of the party” sent to behead other humans is a catalyst to the realisation that “…if you wore the red coat, you part of the evil”.
The Lieutenant encompasses many trials and tests for characters, both major and minor, and the characters are constantly “lost in the unfamiliar”. But as Grenville clearly shows throughout the text, alien situations can be met with fear or training, but alienated amongst your own kind, only your conscience is a true guide.
854 words
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