In The Beaver Coat, Mrs. Wolff was somehow both the protagonist and the antagonist. She was the villain, the one who stole from others, but at the same time she was the hero, she was ensuring her family's survival. One cannot put her into one simple good or evil box. Mrs. Wolff has some admirable traits to balance out the bad ones, and I believe that adds interest and dimension to the play. On the one hand, you know that Mrs. Wolff is doing bad things, and deserves to be caught. But at the same time, because it's for the right reasons, in a clever, devious way, and from the right people (the rich ones, she reminds me of Robin Hood a little), you want her to get away with it.
Mrs. Wolff can be compared to Adam in The Broken Jug. Yes, he did in fact break the jug, but he was trying to be with the girl he liked. He didn't break it out of spite, it was an accident. It can be argued that he didn't conceal the fact he broke the jug because he didn't want to deal with the consequences, but because he was embarrassed that he was brutally rejected by Eve.
How does this effect the outcome of the play?
Well, in The Broken Jug, his good traits were apparently not enough to overcome the fact that he was the villain. He is shamed and driven out of the town at the end, so it would appear that the good in him was to add dimension and complexity to the play. But, in The Beaver Coat, Mrs. Wolff is not punished in any way for her wrongdoing. I would guess that this is an acceptable ending because of her good qualities but for me, it still doesn't seem fair. About as fair, in fact, as Adam being driven out of town because he broke a jug. Was it not enough to remove him from the bench but allow him to remain in the town?
The effect of these morally in-between characters in both of these plays, then, is questioning whether a simple ending is able to work for them. I don't think Adam should be completely humiliated because he isn't a completely bad person and I don't think Mrs. Wolff should walk away without a scratch because she didn't do all completely good things. That these characters have both good and bad traits adds interest and complexity to the plays and because of this, these types of characters are my favourite.
I didn't see the similarities of Mrs. Wolff from The Beaver Coat and Judge Adam from The Broken Jug until you pointed it out. Both characters did something wrong and both should have been punished. But only Judge Adam got punished and Mrs. Wolff just hasn't quite been caught just yet.
ReplyDeleteIn my Creative Writing: Fiction class, we discussed the spectrum of character types:
ReplyDeleteFlat -- Type -- Stereotype
A flat character has no interesting or redeemable qualities. They aren't exactly alive. And a stereotypical character is one that embodies a type of person to a ridiculous/unwavering degree (like a Mary Sue). I'd categorize Wolff as a type -- someone who embodies certain traits of a stereotype, but goes beyond the description in unexpected ways. It's her status as a type that makes her an enjoyable character, despite her not-so-mainstream morality.
I do see some similarities in Mrs. Wolff and Judge Adam in that they both lie to try to get what they want and to try to cover up their bad deeds. However, Mrs. Wolff is totally way more smarter than Judge Adam. Mrs. Wolff is able to come up with lies and cover up her tracks very well. Adam on the other hand did not, and even when the evidence gradually started pointing at him, he STILL tried to lie.
ReplyDeleteSure, both may have their good and bad traits, but at least Mrs. Wolff did it for her family. Adam was doing it for himself. He got caught because he was being selfish, lustful, and wasn't quick with his intelligence like Mrs. Wolff.