In What Way Are Pages 26 (She Will Have Wondered…) to 29 (…She Was Fair Game.) Typical of the Methods and Concerns of Jim Crace Throughout ‘Harvest’?

1348 Words6 Pages
In what way are pages 26 (She will have wondered…) to 29 (…she was fair game.) typical of the methods and concerns of Jim Crace throughout ‘Harvest’? This passage displays many typical methods and concerns present throughout ‘Harvest’, most prominently the struggle between defending land from potential threats and the religious obligation of xenia. Crace associates the want for security and regularity with human nature, justifying the seemingly irrational inability for the villagers to accept the newcomers and the dangers this brings. This passage is an example of Walter’s wise interpretations of others’ emotions promoting him as a reliable narrator; the fact that he wasn't physically present during the event doesn't alter the veracity of his judgement that Mistress Beldam ‘will have wondered at the anger [the villagers] brought with them’. The use of the conditional tense presents Walter as a restricted omniscient narrator and for the reader to be exposed to only Walter’s first person analysis increases the control Crace has over their emotions through the reader narrator bond. The medial position of Walter as both part of the community and an outsider (represented through the mixed pronominalisation of collective and third person pronouns) not only gains two interpretations, but also represents human nature and the pull between the want for security and the want for spontaneity. Walter’s used to explore the need to feel safe and belonging to a group but the accompanying dissatisfaction with the regularity, fuelling the adrenaline for new experiences. His insecure status is demonstrated through his justification of the villagers’ actions as ‘[defending] themselves’ yet his reluctance to fully include himself in the events through his lack of personal opinion on the situation and the continuous use of exclusive pronouns such as ‘they’ rather than ‘we’. The

More about In What Way Are Pages 26 (She Will Have Wondered…) to 29 (…She Was Fair Game.) Typical of the Methods and Concerns of Jim Crace Throughout ‘Harvest’?

Open Document