ŽILINSKÁ UNIVERZITA V ŽILINE Fakulta prírodných vied

Katedra anglického jazyka a literatúry

DIPLOMOVÁ PRÁCA

2006 Jana Marcinková

Irony in the novel Master Georgie written by Beryl Bainbridge

Diplomová práca

Jana Marcinková

Žilinská univerzita v Žiline

Fakulta prírodných vied

Vedúci diplomovej práce: doc. PhDr. Stanislav Kolář, CSc.

Konzultant: PhDr. Gabriela Boldizsárová

Komisia pre obhajoby: Katedra anglického jazyka a literatúry

Stupeň odbornej kvalifikácie: magister

Dátum odovzdania práce: 2006-04-15

Žilina 2006

ČESTNÉ PREHLÁSENIE

Vyhlasujem, že som túto diplomovú prácu napísala samostatne s použitím

uvádzanej literatúry.

Žilina 2006

POĎAKOVANIE

Chcela by som sa poďakovať mojej konzultantke PhDr. Gabriele

Boldizsárovej za jej ochotu, trpezlivosť a usmernenie pri písaní tejto diplomovej

práce.

ABSTRAKT

Témou tejto diplomovej práce je irónia v historickom románe „Master

Georgie“ britskej spisovateľky Beryl Bainbridge. Formálne je rozdelená do

dvoch hlavných kapitol. Prvá, teoretická časť, obsahuje tri podkapitoly. V prvej

z nich sa zaoberáme smerom postmodernizmus a jeho vplyvom na súčasnú

spoločenskú situáciu. Sústredíme sa predovšetkým na myšlienku, že

v súčasnosti už neexistuje uzavretý výklad života a celková koncepcia

univerzálneho. V druhej časti je objasnený vplyv postmodernizmu na literatúru.

Medzi hlavné zmeny patrí napríklad pohľad na realitu a úloha rozprávača,

pričom nesmieme zabudnúť na iróniu, ktorá predstavuje kľúčový prvok v rámci

postmoderného textu. V tretej podkapitole charakterizujeme pojem irónia a jeho

rôzne formy, pričom zisťujeme, že v súčasnom postmodernom období je

použitie irónie mnohonásobné, či už v rámci textu, alebo reči. Druhá, praktická

časť sa zaoberá analýzou novely „Master Georgie“ z pohľadu irónie.

V priebehu tejto analýzy si všímame nielen jeho obsahovú, ale aj formálnu

stránku, pričom vychádzame z tvrdenia, že irónia stavia do juxtapozície zdanie

a realitu. To znamená, že to, čo sa stane, bude opakom toho, čo očakávame.

Cieľom tejto diplomovej práce je dokázať, že komplexnosť rozoberaného diela

je vytvorená prostredníctvom prenikajúcej irónie.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 7

1 THEORETICAL PART 9

1.1 Postmodernism and social situation 9

1.2 Postmodernism and literature 17

1.3 Forms of irony, irony and postmodernism 22

2 ANALYSIS OF NOVEL MASTER GEORGIE 29

2.1 Summary of the plot 29

2.2 Irony in the novel Master Georgie 31

2.2.1 Plate 1. 1846 33

2.2.2 Plate 2. 1850 40

2.2.3 Plate 3. 1854 46

2.2.4 Plate 4. August 1854 52

2.2.5 Plate 5. October 1854 57

2.2.6 Plate 6. November 1854 62

CONCLUSION 68

RESUMÉ 70

BIBLIOGRAPHY 77

INTRODUCTION

This thesis deals with analysis of the novel Master Georgie written by Beryl

Bainbridge from an interesting point of view. This special aspect is irony.

The author Beryl Bainbridge is one of the British popular novelists. She was

born in Liverpool on 21 November 1934 and got educated at Merchant Taylors´

School. Bainbridge spent her early years working as an actress at Liverpool

Repertory Theatre, before she published her first novel. She has been short-

listed for the Booker Prize four times and she has won the Whitbread Prize

three times. The author is known for her psychologically bright portrayals of

lower-middle class life. A number of her novels are set in her native Liverpool

and the first two chapters of the novel Master Georgie are not an exception

either. The author often uses her own experiences that can be the reason why

her work has attracted so wide readership. Beryl Bainbridge is a wonderful

observer of human folly and self-deception, she uses witty language and what is

left unsaid is often as important as what is. The readers of her novels have to

pay attention to her every word and it is useful if one also has a sharp ear for

irony that is one of the significant features in Beryl Bainbridge´s novels.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the novel Master Georgie from the point

of view of irony, that means to find out what kind of irony occurs in every of the

six chapters of this novel. Besides, the illustration of the figures of verbal irony,

dramatic irony or irony of fate, etc. we try to clarify also the formal irony as

a stylistic method that is therefore associated with the above mentioned

technique of saying as little and meaning as much as possible.

Furthermore, coming out from the analyses of her previous novels that have

been done by Swedish critic Elisabeth Wennı, our aim is to examine whether

the characteristic features of her previous novels occur in the novel Master

Georgie as well. We would like to show that the complexity of this novel is

produced through a permeating irony.

We particularly try to focus on the negative construction that ironically works to

attach and upset realistic appeal and we also try to target the reader in order to

find out if he or she is distanced by the presentation or invited to experience the

process of narrated events. Moreover, we concentrate on the opposition

between the ideal and the actual; it means the contrast between transcendence

and separation, or entrapment.

To show and highlight these viewpoints is a partial intention of this work

along with the statement that the ironic interplay in the novel Master Georgie

reveals a commitment to the needs of the individuals and to the cultural

necessity of shared interpretative systems.

This thesis is divided into two main chapters. In addition to the analysis of

the novel, which represents the practical part of this work, the theoretical part

illustrates the connections between postmodernism and social situation and

postmodernism and literature. We will also outline the forms of irony and the

relationship between this technique and postmodernism.

Each of this part is very important for the analysis of the novel Master

Georgie, in order to understand the chosen theme better.

1 THEORETICAL PART 1.1 Postmodernism and social situation

In recent years, it has become quite fashionable to talk about the term

postmodern and its derivatives postmodernism and postmodernity. Therefore,

they require careful elaboration before being used in a history of social thought.

It is certain that postmodernism is very difficult to be defined. However, it can

be described as a set of ideas that has only emerged as an area of academic

study since the middle 1980s. We can say that this movement is a concept,

which appears in a wide variety of disciplines or areas of study, including art,

architecture, communications, film, music, literature, sociology, philosophy,

technology and fashion.

The term itself entered the philosophical lexicon first in 1979, with the

publication of work "The Postmodern Condition" written by Jean-Francois

Lyotard. Postmodernism derives from postmodernity which Lyotard

characterized as "a culmination of the process of modernity towards and

accelerating pace of cultural change". (www.en.wikipedia.org)1 According to this,

postmodernism as a cultural movement is an aspect of postmodernity and

predates itself as a theoretical discipline by many years. When exactly

modernism began to give way to postmodernism depends on the observer.

Post-modern debate centred on whether or not we had reached the end of

modernity. One of the approaches, which come from history and sociology,

contrasts postmodernity with modernity. Modernity refers to a set of

philosophical, ethical and political ideas, which provide the basis for the

aesthetic aspect of modernism. It can be seen both as an economic change

which results from the Industrial Revolution and as an ideological change

resulting from the French Revolution. As we have mentioned earlier, it is very

hard to decide what is modern and what is not.

1 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism>

However, we can say, that the modern era is generally associated with the

European Enlightenment, which began in the 18th century. As the intellectual

and cultural interest grew, such thinkers as Jean Francois Lyotard, Jean

Baudrillard, Frederic Jameson and Jacques Derrida proposed the epoch of

Postmodernity with its own political, economic, and cultural ideals and practices.

Contemporary theory started to be preoccupied with the emergence of a new

epochal shift.

While modernity refers to the certain ideas, postmodernity refers to the social

condition. It means our way of life is changed. It mostly concerns the changes in

organization of our ways of life, but there is a change in ways how we

experience reality as well.

It is certain that there is a great sense of the coming to an end in many ways

today. For our nation it can be the end of Communism, there can be the end of

social class, the end of ideology and so on. There is no doubt that we are living

in a new era now, which can be called postmodernity, but to describe the

intellectual reactions to this term we have to think about postmodernism.

Specifically, it refers to the ways that people, mainly academics, visual artists

and writers, response to the conditions of Postmodernity. Postmodernists view

society as something that can no longer be explained as functioning truly in one

way for all time and being. Based on these views, society is everywhere

constantly changing, and for this reason cannot be explained by the

universalizing theories advanced by modernity.

There are many rapid changes in the late twentieth century, sometimes we

might think of them as bewildering. However, every time something new

emerges, the old one must go aside. In other words, every aspect of life reacts

one upon another in the context of an emerging new social world. We can say

that this change means revolution in every aspect of social life from technology

to the arts, politics, economics, theology, human perception, etc. Moreover, the

way we relate to one another, as well as the individual, family and community.

Technology is creating new human environments today. There are new

forms of corporate power, new systems of mass communication. Especially the

importance of computer technology is helping to reorganize social-economic life

worldwide. According to Mark Poster, the new social condition can be described

by the mode of information.

He claims that we must find new ways to theorize a world in which the mode

of production is less important than the mode of information. It is true, because

we can see inequality between those who are information rich and those who

are information poor everyday. Those who are information rich will have well-

paid and interesting jobs, while those who are information poor will have low-

paid jobs. Nowadays also, educated people hope for a long-term employment,

which is equivalent to their field of study.

This information based economy results in the globalization of the economy

and leads to the global economic interdependence. These technological and

economic changes suggest a theme of decentralization, which can be

recognized in many areas of social life today. For example, it is no longer

necessary for workers to live close to the company, or factory. They can sit

comfortably at home with their computer. Similarly, students at the university

can get their degree even without seeing it simply with the help of "virtual

university" or "distance learning". Among the features, which characterize

contemporary culture, can be the suggestion that our experiences are now

rooted in the processes of consumption rather than production. Consumption

deals with whole nation or individuals and asks question why do people or the

individual buy some goods or use services and what is the effect on economy,

environment and especially what the effect on individuals is. Mainly it affects

powerful countries, but our country soon became to follow this "phenomenon". It

is nothing special to visit supermarket or shopping centre during the weekends.

It became quite fashionable. Instead of going somewhere out, we go out, but

actually, when we think about it, we go inside, not outside. There are also more

serious problems, which are related to our shapes of bodies and the desire to

look younger and beautiful.

It means that postmodernism emphasizes the importance of style and

appearance over content, even though it has to be said that the participation in

such way of life is a voluntary one. However, we have to think of what happens

to those who cannot afford this kind of lifestyle and can be therefore excluded

from the basis of social identity. Today we are responsible for ourselves and it

can affect physical basis of day-to-day life.

With all this, there comes the change of conceptions, as well. Our concept is

directly connected with the developments. The electronic means of

communication are certainly unique features of the twentieth century. It is said

that computers kill or destroy time. There seems to be today, much more than in

the past, a sense of the immediate. The availability of information is momentary.

There is so much competing information, which results in the fact, that our

attention span is shortened. People mix and match styles and genres. It is

obvious when we think about television or magazine. The number of television

programmes is increasing and watching television channels starts to be very

similar to the reading of magazines. We switch from one channel to another like

we turn from one page to another one. Today an individual can be seen as a

result of whatever experience is available now. This means the loss of the

centre. These are just a few examples of changes happening today to

demonstrate that something is happening to social life. Something that is

significant in the late twentieth century. Moreover, on all fronts the central theme

of that change is de-centring.

There are many questions to be asked and many ways in which

Postmodernism can be viewed. One of the most important questions is that

about politics involved. In our contemporary society, the desire to return to the

pre-postmodern era tends to get associated with conservative political,

philosophical and religious groups. One of the consequences of postmodernism

seems to be the rise of religious fundamentalism, which is the most obvious in

Muslim religion, mainly in the Middle East where they ban postmodern books.

This association between the rejection of postmodernism and conservatism

may explain why feminist theorists have found postmodernism so attractive.

Another essential aspect of postmodernism is that this movement is largely

a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific or objective efforts to explain

reality. It rises from recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human

understanding but rather, it is constructed as the mind tries to understand its

own particular and personal reality. For this reason, postmodernism is highly

sceptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, races

or traditions. Instead, it focuses on the relative truths of each person.

Considering the scientific efforts, the status of science in the modern world is

very important. However unexpected this direction might be, Jean Francois

Lyotard produces a review of how knowledge has operated in the West since

Renaissance. The knowledge in modern societies was equated with science

and contrasted to narrative. Although, science was good knowledge and

narrative was bad and primitive, knowledge on its own was good, because one

gained knowledge to become an educated person. In postmodern society,

knowledge becomes functional and it is distributed and arranged differently,

which is particularly the result of technological development. Although, this era

of postmodernism can be best described by these technical conquests,

anything that is not digitizable will cease to be knowledge. We can define

scientific knowledge also in opposition to ideology. There are two obvious

problems. If ideology is a kind of discourse, also scientific knowledge is a kind

of discourse. There is also the problem of infinite regress. J. F. Lyotard argues

that this knowledge never legitimated itself because it relies on what he terms

"narrative knowledge" to support it.

"Narrative knowledge is customary, embedded in culture, enacted in forms of

social competence as ´lived experience´ which typically is represented as

narration. Unlike scientific knowledge, narrative knowledge goes ´beyond the

criterion of truth´, and requires no further legitimation because it legitimates

itself." (Sim, 2001, p. 19)2

2 SIM, S. 2001. The Routledge companion to Postmodernism

According to Lyotard every belief system or ideology has its grand narratives.

He argues that totality, stability and order, are maintained in modern societies

through the means of these grand narratives.

Mainly he attacks the narrative of emancipation for which science is believed to

be a necessary means and the narrative of triumph of science as speculation or

pure and authentic knowledge. Lyotard thinks that these narratives "lost their

credibility" since the Second World War. We might also think of grand

narratives as a kind of meta-theory, or meta-ideology, that is, an ideology that

explains an ideology. These metanarratives serve to give cultural practices

some form of legitimation. As an example, the Marxist belief in the privileged

function of the proletariat can serve.

In other words, metanarrative refers to the ideas that are used to understand

the world. Although postmodernists today try to resist grandnarratives, the

problem is if one tries to live without them, then he uncovers a hidden grand

narrative. It depends on what we believe. For example, according to Geertz "we

are changing the way we think about the way we think." (www.accd.edu)3

Although, Lyotard stresses the fact that in the postmodern condition we

cannot find science in truth and so distinguish it from ideology, another

philosopher, Jean Baudrillard conceives postmodernism as an endless

circulation of signs from which any sense of reality has fallen away, a world in

which there are simulations and only simulations. He is strongly influenced by

a tradition in French philosophy called semiology, which is the science of sign

systems and includes language as well as visual and social codes. This leads to

how we understand signs and symbols in our culture. He explains that

nowadays, in postmodern order, signs have no connection to the real. Because

signs indeed are more real than reality, the imaginary, and the real become

confused. We can say we entered the era of hyperrealists because for

postmodern societies there are only surfaces without depth, only signifiers with

no signifiers. While culturally, modernity stressed the purity of each art and the

3 <http://www.accd.edu/sac/interdis/2370/text.htm>

autonomy of cultures a whole, postmodernism designates a new social

positioning of the cultural object.

According to Jameson, modernity expresses the art object as something

mysterious within which there was a truth to reveal or history to uncover. As an

illustration, he examines Vincent Van Gogh´s Peasant Shoes as an example of

modernist art, which represents an actual social situation with social truths that

the shoes held in relation to the peasants, as well. As an opposition, he sees

Andy Warhol´s Diamond Dust Shoes to represent the postmodern art. He says

that this painting does not speak to us with hidden reality, because postmodern

art is not only the absence of meaning as spoken through the work but also

a rejection of the viewer. We can see contemporary cultural production mass

culturally; it means everything in postmodern society is cultural.

Similarly, when talking about the loss of ´depth´ within postmodernity, that is

what J. Baudrillard calls "simulacra". As an example, we can think about

sculpture, an original one. Of course, there are hundreds or more copies, but

the original is unique. It has its value. The sculpture is the individual and

creative work of a single artist. It cannot be reproduced in the same form. In

contrast, let us think about compact discs, where we find hardly any original,

which could be hung on the wall. Nowadays, there are only copies by many

people, there are all the same, or very similar. In addition, we can buy them for

approximately the same amount of money. Jean Baudrillard also points to the

Industrial Revolution. In this era, the processes of production emerge and as

a result, there are thousands copies of the same artefact. The camera offers the

best example of this fact in terms of images. Although it refers to an external

reality, there is no original of a photographic image. Images and cultural

artefacts become realities in their own right. They no longer refer to a single

reality. Considering the technological development we might also think about

virtual reality, which is created by simulation and the point is that there is no

original for this reality. This can be mostly seen in computer games.

Postmodernists prefer provocative forms of delivery and vital elements of

genre or style in all disciplines. For example, contemporary social scientists are

beginning to utilize more open and fluid metaphors for social life such as game

theory, dramaturgy and text, rather than the totalizing metaphors of modernist

social thinkers. As a result, all social phenomena can be thought of as text. That

means a world of meaning created by the interaction of the text and the reader.

Meaning is fluid and changing, and rather than inconvertible idea created by the

author, it is a mater of the social moment. It means that postmodernism relies

on the concrete experience over abstract principles with the knowledge that the

outcome of one’s own experience will be misleading and relative, rather than

certain and universal.

We can see and understand postmodernism in many different ways. Some

of us can see it as a promise of a new and better society; others can fear its

radical relativism. It can represent freedom from the past for someone; others

may think that this social orders lead only to chaos.

Postmodernism certainly rearrange everything and offers diversity rather

than unity, complexity rather than simplification. However, it mainly denies the

existence of any ultimate principles.

1.2 Postmodernism and literature

Postmodernism has influenced all spheres of life and for this reason;

literature cannot be an exception either. The rise and fall of postmodernist

writing is not certain, but we can say it was the dominant mode of literature

between Sixties and Nineties. It arose as a series of styles and ideas in the post

World War II that responded to the standards of modernist literature. We can

find many of its fundamental techniques and premises also in postmodernism,

which means that postmodernism is a change from modernism, not opposite of

it.

Both modern and postmodern literature represents a break from the 19th

century realism. Postmodern literature disengages from realism in which the

novel is based on realistic story and forms an illusion of system and value that

no longer represents the true picture of reality. In postmodern literature, the real

world is formed by the activity of individual characters. It allows using wide

range of literary methods so that high/low literature can pierce into the spheres

of fantasy, surrealistic allegory and magic realism. The major representatives of

postmodernist fiction are from all over the world. Among them, we can find John

Fowles, Angela Carter, Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco, Günter Grass, Gabriel

Garcia Márquez, Vladimir Nabokov and many others.

As an example, John Fowles supposes that literature includes illusion,

manipulation and new formal means and methods, but it still shows one´s real

life in contemporary society. Elsewhere, the postmodern literature shifts away

from the sphere of social realism to the sphere of dream, myth and fantasy.

Gabriel Garcia Márquez in his novel One hundred years of Solitude (1967)

makes the form of magic realism based on belief that myth, fantasy or dream

are not less real that the known territory of social realism which was so

traditionally used in novel. Although, majority of the postmodern literature is

based on sceptical approach to reality, for instance, German writer Günter

Grass sees the possibility of harmonization between postmodern art and social

involvement.

The best example represents the novel Midnight´s Children (1981) written by

Salman Rushdie who as a confessor of magic realism provides the original and

new view of East that was so gladly and quickly accepted by West.

Nevertheless, when he used the combinations of myths with reality and

philosophy with fantasy for the analysis of Islam from the misbeliever’s point of

view in his novel Satanic Verses (1988), he was sentenced to death and has to

hide himself up to now.

While story was told from an objective point of view in realism, both

modernism and postmodernism literature go through subjectivism. It means

they turn from external reality to examine the inner states of consciousness and

concern about how seeing takes place, rather than on what is perceived.

Postmodernism is far away from the apparent objectivity which is provided by

omniscient third-person narrators and fixed narrative points of view. It

experiments with role of narrator, language, time, view of reality, etc.

Nothing is total or complete in postmodernism; it presents a multiple view of

reality, non-traditional narrative and anti-illusive perspectives. Postmodernism

supports fragmentation, discontinuity and puts an emphasis on the decentred,

destructured and dehumanized subject. While in modernism, the fragmented

view of human subjectivity and history is presented as something tragic,

postmodernism rather celebrates that. In postmodernism, reality is fragmented

and time is. In Margaret Atwood’s postmodern story, Death of a Landscape

(1989), her use of time and space becomes the framework for this story. The

ideas of fragmentation, discontinuity and multiplicity reveal the fragmented and

incomplete thoughts of the main character, Lois. This novel cuts back and forth

across space and time. There is dialogue of the past, in light of the

present. The switch of time forces the reader to accept narrative disjunctions

through these flashbacks.

The postmodernist writer does not trust the wholeness and completion of

traditional stories. Writer of this era prefers other ways of structuring narrative.

One possible alternative is the multiple ending, which resists closure by offering

various outcomes for a plot. John Fowles and his novel French Lieutenant´s

Woman (1969) represent the classic example of this. In this novel, he offers two

possible endings. The first one ends in marriage, after Charles finds Sarah, the

second one in Sarah´s independence. Author also plays with the third possibility

of leaving Charles on the train, searching for Sarah in the capital. Author

addresses the reader directly and he steps into the story as a character. These

are the tactics of the multiple endings.

Another possibility how to achieve this point of opening is breaking up the

text into short fragments or sections, which are separated by space, numbers,

titles or symbols. The novels and the short stories of Richard Brautigan are full

of such fragments. Some writers even fragment the text with illustrations or

mixed media. All this results in the fact that there is a need to find new forms of

continuity, because the old linear plots are absent. That is why the

representatives of postmodern literature claim that the present is significantly

different from the modern period and therefore requires a new literary sensibility.

Among the features of postmodern literature (or fiction), we can also find

pastiche, temporal disorder, looseness of association, paranoia, the creation of

vicious circles, etc.

If we talk about pastiche, which is a kind of permutation, a shuffling of

generic and grammatical tics then we can say it arises from the frustration that

everything has been done before. This explains why so many contemporary

writers use certain elements of popular genres, such as historical novel, sci-fi

story, detective story, spy novel, the western, the thriller, etc. One of the most

popular sources for postmodernist pastiche is science fiction which can be

repesented by Kurt Vonnegut´s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) and among the

popular postmodernist detective fiction we can find the novel The name of the

Rose (1986) written by Umberto Eco.

Canadian writer Linda Hutcheon argues that postmodernist writing is best

represented by those works of „historiographic metafiction“ which self-

consciously distort history.

We can say that postmodernist fiction does not just disrupt the past, but it

corrupts the present, too. This mixes historical and fictional material and implies

or states a postmodernist critique of the realist norms for the relationship of

fiction to history. If we take the novel The remains of the Day (1993) by Kazuo

Ishiguro we find out that the topic primarily deals with the butler versus history

and butler versus his own soul. The author offers us the feeling that we have

unravelled the right image. We do not believe that history can come before the

emotions at all, although history is nothing overall, as compared to the least

string of emotion.

At this point, is essential to explain what does the above-mentioned term

metafiction means. One of the aspects of postmodernism is to explore the

relationship between fiction and reality and between history and mythology.

Metafiction is then a kind of fictional writing which "self-consciously addresses

the devices of fiction". (www.en.wikipedia.org) 4 It celebrates the power of

creative imagination and uses parodic and playful style or writing. Metafiction

usually involves irony and it is self-reflective. It can represent only a moment in

a story, or it can be central to the work, as in Tristram Shandy (1759 – 1767)

written by Laurence Sterne. In this novel author requires the reader to wait until

he finishes digressions and enjoying twists such as odd turns of phrase, blank

pages and puns. According to Waugh, "metafiction is a tendency or function in

all novels". (www.hku.hk)5 It means that stories always have something to tell us

about stories themselves and involve metafictional dimensions. The novel does

not use any metalanguage that signifies a fictional world and is used to make

statements about language, but it uses the languages of memoirs, histories,

diaries, journals, etc. Linda Hutcheon also says that one of the compelling

reasons for her study of postmodernism was the idea of revisiting the past with

a sense of irony.

One of those works, which play with the notion of history as a narrative and

with the retrospective ironies, is John Fowles´s The French Lieutenant´s

4 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafiction> 5 <http://www.hku.hk/english/courses2000/7006/week7.htm>

Woman (1969). The novel contains author’s ironical commentary on the events

displayed in the story. We can be inside and outside the novel at the same time.

It means we can feel for the characters, which is typical for the realistic novel,

but we can also judge them from an ironically point of view.

The fixture of the historical novel to postmodernism is not so immediately

obvious. All the historical novels involve some violation of boundaries. Also

traditional historical novels, which place their characters in a past time and try to

image that era realistically in both fact and spirit, aim to hide the violations

between fictional projections and real-world facts. They simply avoid

contradictions between the versions of historical figures and their familiar facts.

For example, about Napoleon as a real historical figure and his career. Among

the representatives of the historical novel we can find Alexandre Dumas, Sir

Walter Scott, Margaret Mitchell, etc. In addition, the list of postmodernist

historical novelist includes Salman Rushdie, Günter Grass, Beryl Bainbridge,

etc.

The construction of a novel is not completed only by its narrative, characters

or meaning, but another important emphasis is placed on voice. There is more

than one voice in a literary text, even if it is a voice just talking or responding to

it. Recent literary theory concerns with the importance of seeing literature as

a space in which multiple voices can come together. This consistence of two or

more melodic voices is what we call polyphony. Very good example provides

the narrator in Salman Rushdie´s novel Midnight´s Children (1981) Saleem,

who constantly hears multiple voices. The recent literary theory also suggests

that we should not think only about the voice of an author, a narrator or a reader,

but we should think of the difference and multiplicity within every voice.

We should realize that postmodernist stories do not exist in order to change

people’s belief systems. In fact, postmodernism would critique or parody stories

such as these. However, it is important to remember that postmodern works of

literature are determined by such literary elements as parody, destabilization of

social norms and mainly irony as the key element in postmodern text.

1.3 Forms of Irony, Irony and Postmodernism

The theme of irony is quite interesting, because it considers innumerous and

sometimes controversial points of view. The term itself came into English in the

16th century. It is derived from the Latin ´ironia´, which came from the Greek

eironeia, meaning simulated ignorance.

Generally, irony means the usage of language to express both a surface

meaning and an underlying meaning, which is different. It signifies that the

appearance of things differ from their reality, whether in terms of meaning,

action, or situation. Irony can appear in many various forms. Some of them are

verbal, non-verbal, dramatic, structural, situational, rhetorical, irony of Fate,

Socratic, philosophical, romantic, cosmic, tragic, etc.

Irony is also a technique, which shows the dualistic view of man as a mixture

of bodily instinct and rational intellect. It includes the ability to see things in

double aspect that is as they are and as they ought to be. This is the common

classification of irony, which is used to express oneself, usually to a single

audience. The simplest form of this kind of irony is an ordinary conversation.

Considering this, verbal irony, sometimes called rhetorical, occurs when an

author says one thing, but means something else. Sometimes the surface

meaning can be false, or it can be a level of meaning which differs from the

underlying one. It is very essential if one can recognize when the words should

not be taken as they sound, that means to recognize the dissembling. It all

depends on the context in which the words occur, but it includes the speaker’s

character, the situation and the relationship between the speaker and the

reader, as well. We can say it is the most straightforward kind of irony. For

example, throughout the novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet

Letter (1850) characters often say something without realizing the significance

or they say the opposite of what is meant. This is especially obvious in the

situation when Hester stands on the scaffold and Dimmesdale makes a defence

for her to confess her partner to sin.

He uses very ironic words especially when he mentions that her silence would

only enforce her partner to add hypocrisy to sin. This situation is particularly

ironic because he will live the life of hypocrisy because of his and Hester´s sin.

Another category consists of those forms in which there are two audiences.

One of them is the audience, which understands only the surface meaning of

the expression while the second audience understands both meanings and

realizes that the first one does not understand. The speaker usually asks the

uninitiated audience while the trusty audience observes. This is mostly obvious

in dramatic irony, which occurs in a situation in which the audience or the

reader knows more about the momentaneous circumstances or a fate for

a character than the character himself within the story. The best examples of

this kind of irony are probably the Greek tragedies. In these stories, certain

words seem to be safe and unimportant to the character, but the audience is

usually aware of a meaning, which carries far greater significance. The

outcome of the character’s unawareness can be tragic. Audiences familiar with

Othello or Sophocles´ tragedy know what it is all about, because they can watch

every step of the characters´ fault. For example, when the young Oedipus

inadvertently kills his father and marries his mother, his brother-in-law Creon

suggests that he killed the king of Thebes in order to become a king. Oedipus is

disgraced and tells him: "A fool is he who thinks he can sin against his kinfolk

and not suffer the wrath of the Gods." (www.everything2.com)6 This example

can serve as the best example of dramatic irony although this kind of irony can

also produce a comic effect when the unintended results of characters actions

are humorous.

The applications of irony are manifold in both language and civilization. In

language, irony can be traced in the tone, the form and the structure. The

propositions, sentences and utterances can lend themselves to irony in the

linguistic, the extra-linguistic and the pragmatic domains of discourse.

6 <www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1433164>

As an example, in structural irony both the surface meaning and the deeper

implications are presented more or less throughout. It uses the naive hero or

narrator, whose simple comments are at variance with the reader’s

interpretation. The reader’s understanding of the author’s intention is very

important as well as the perceiving an authorial presence behind the naive

persona. Let us think about Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726), where the narrator

Gulliver is naive and idealizes some people, even they are fools. Even though

he is preoccupied with conservative morality and personal pride, at the end he

behaves like a horse, because he considers horses superior to men.

At the end of the eighteenth century, irony came to be seen as a relationship

between human subjects and the world. It means that the subject was

suspended somewhere above it. The central figure of romantic art is

Shakespeare who first came up with the idea of the absent author. This gap

between words and world was original for the Romantics. They argued if we try

to see whole language as ironic, life would no longer be reduced to what is

sayable, or frozen into the fixed forms of grammar and syntax. It became

possible to see literature as the privileged mode of human understanding,

because romantics established that the truth of life lied in a questioning and

imaginative play of representations, such as poetry. In romantic irony writer

sets up the world of his text and then expressly undermines it by reminding the

reader that it is only a form of illusion. In Byron’s Don Juan (1821), the author

gives us the loving Juan who goes through a series of love affairs and political

activities. The poem is divided between the positive personality of Don Juan

and the destructive voice of the narrator. On the one hand there is a honest

creation of this hero, mainly the creation of his identity and personality which

gives the sense to life. On the other hand, the narrator de-forms the sense by

drawing attention to the fact that all forms of self and personality are fictions.

Although irony primarily concerns with language, it is acceptable to apply

irony figuratively, as well. The kind of figurative irony is the irony of Fate, in

which an event or a set of circumstances takes place of the expression of

language. The obvious candidates are situations that are particularly perverse,

situations that seem to mock the expectations of most of us, or that are

humorous at our expense. Many practical jokes can serve as a good illustration

of figuratively ironic situation. However, the irony here belongs to the humans

who play the jokes. Those on whom the jokes are played are the outsiders and

any spectators represent the inner circle. The irony of fate is concerned with

situations that apparently just happened and for which no natural explanation is

satisfactory. We are not able to explain the situation in terms of nature and

therefore it results from the interference with the normal course of events. But

who is than responsible for the result? In this kind of situations, we tend to say

that some superior powers, such as fate have to be responsible for that. One

of the examples can be the situation when the rain sets in immediately after one

finishes watering one’s garden. That would be all right if one has not been

putting off the watering in anticipation of rain for many days. Another situation,

which can suggests an example of the irony of fate is this one. One couple

enter the national lottery every week; they select the same numbers each time.

After thirty years, they have still not won anything at all. As usually, on Sunday

they watch television and their numbers come up. Husband is very happy and

then he realizes that his wife forgot to purchase the ticket. This situation can be

better explained as the act of a mischievous sense of humour rather than too

unlucky one. As an expression of Fate’s black humour or and unfortunate

natural occurrence can serve this situation: two animal rights activists were

protesting the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse. Suddenly the pigs,

all two thousand of them, escaped through a broken fence and stampeded,

trampling the two hapless protesters to death. The outcome shows how

unavoidable can be someone’s destiny.

Irony is often confused with sarcasm and satire. Sarcasm is one kind of irony,

the highest form of bitter irony and it is stronger than irony itself. It involves the

desire to put someone down. For example in Jane Austen´s Pride and Prejudice

(1813), one of the girls says to a man. "Oh, what a gift to a woman you are!"

This saying is praise, which is actually an insult. Generally, it is expressed

through the vocal intonations such as over-emphasizing the particular words or

the statement. It also uses a cynical tone, which was used by another great

writer Mark Twain when he once said that the coldest winter he ever spent was

a summer in San Francisco. Another kind of irony is satire, which is the

exposure of the follies of an individual, a group, an idea, society, etc. Satirists

use irony very frequently. Among them we find Oscar Wilde and his play The

importance of being Earnest (1895) in which the characters are motivated and

controlled by social standards which are used to maintain social distinctions and

social class privileges although they have very little substance. The young

lovers realize their dreams of romance against this system of controls. Similarly,

the novel Catch 22 (1961) written by Joseph Heller is full of satire, irony,

paradoxes, criticism of American society, etc. The satiric tone is seen through

the whole novel. Many important institutions are satirized. Except the medical

establishment also the military bureaucracy and the officers.

We can say that irony is the triumph of postmodernism and therefore we

cannot omit the nostalgic dimension of the postmodern. Canadian critic Linda

Hutcheon characterises postmodernism in terms of irony, de-naturalisation and

commitment to duplicity and doubleness. She claims that nowadays we should

not ignore the real and uneasy tension between postmodern irony and nostalgia,

because they are both seen as the key components of contemporary culture. At

first, nostalgia nowadays represents something different as it did in the past. It

lost its meaning when the word first entered everyday language. It was first

used in 1678 by Swiss physician Jean-Jacques Harder and referred to the

serious medical disorder: "the pain a sick person feels because he is not in his

native land, or fears never to see it again." (www.en.wikipedia.org)7

7 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia>

Nostalgia began to loose its purely meaning by the nineteenth century and

became generalized. Nostalgia concerns less about the past than about the

present and brings the imagined past near. The simple past is constructed in

partnership with the present that is on the other hand complicated. This

nostalgic distancing makes the past feel complete and stable which we cannot

say about the present at all. Nostalgia can be then associated with simple

memory such as a fond childhood memory, a certain game or a treasured

personal object. Nowadays, in the era of technology nostalgia can operate as a

possible escape from this world. On the other hand, we should thank for this

technology, because the evidence of the past is easier and therefore nostalgia

no longer has to rely on one’s memory or desire.

As we have mentioned earlier irony has two meanings the said and the

unsaid one and they come together in order to create the irony. It means that

both irony and nostalgia are doubled. Hutcheon argues that irony is not

something in an object that we either get or fail to get, it simply happens for us

when these two meanings come together. In similar way nostalgia is not

something we perceive in an object, it is what we feel when the past and the

present come together for us, often with considerable emotions.

Considering this, irony and nostalgia go together in the postmodern and it

may be mainly because of the fact that they both do not represent the qualities

of objects but they are responses of subjects. In addition, these subjects are

according to Hutcheon "active, emotionally and intellectually engaged".

(www.library.utoronto.ca)8

In civilisation, irony seems to have become a life style and a strategy of

survival to go through all aspects of modern life. Sometimes it seems to be

a way of contemplating the fate of our New World. There is a massive growth in

the use of irony in art and literature. Ironies of the text and voice become signs

of a good taste in literature and drama. For a skilled writer or painter it can

represent a tool in their hands, because irony undermines claims and unmasks

8 <http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/criticism/hutchinp.html>

appearances. Irony in postmodernism erases the difference between ideal and

real, high and low culture.

While in modernism irony is used as a response to a world, which is seen in

fragments and where the radical incoherence is not resolved or unified, in

postmodernism irony represents the rise of the awareness of incoherence,

which cannot be accounted for or contained in the form. Postmodernism uses

irony as its primary way of expression, but it also takes the advantage of and

subverts accords. We can say that postmodernism is an attitude which is ironic.

It reasons in comedy and raises the spirit of parody and play. Poems based on

complex rules are written in a kind of cooperation with the language with the

attempt to bring out the poetry linked in the language. Considering all these

aspects, we can think of postmodernism as the triumph of irony.

2 ANYLYSIS OF THE NOVEL MASTER GEORGIE 2.1 Summary of the plot

In recent years, Beryl Bainbridge´s novels have been based on real lives and

historical events. Her historical novels include The Birthday Boys (1991), the

story of Captain Scott´s doomed expedition to the South Pole; Every man for

Himself (1996), the story about premier voyage of The Titanic, and her latest

novel According to Queeney (2001) which features a young narrator

commenting on historical events.

In 1998, Beryl Bainbridge published her third historical novel Master Georgie.

This novel is considered to be one of her best and it was shortlisted for the

1998 Booker Prize. It specializes in fictionalising another of the great British

disasters, this time it describes the exquisite chaos of the Crimean War, which

was the Russian-English conflict best known for the Charge of the Light Brigade

and Florence Nightingale's saga, both to which the author pays only a little

attention.

Although the story is enacted during the war, the frame of the book is not so

much the war itself as a group of people whose lives are focused by it. The

protagonist is Master Georgie – George Hardy, surgeon and amateur

photographer who decides to offer his services in this war and sets off from the

comfortable Victorian Liverpool to the horrific battlefields in Crimea.

The story is told through the eyes of three characters who take turns in

telling moments in which their lives coincide with the main character Master

Georgie. There is Myrtle, a young girl, who is an orphan adopted and raised by

Hardy´s family and who deeply adores George. Next is Pompey Jones, young

street urchin, who is very good at con games, fire eating and he is appreciated

by George as his occasional photographic assistant and his sometimes lover.

The last is Dr. Potter, geologist and George’s brother-in-law, who studies the

classics and the new science of Darwin.

George, Pompey and Myrtle are linked by a terrible secret, the misfortune

death of George´s father in one of the Liverpool’s brothel. George ´asks´ them

for a help with his father corpse in order to spare his mother and the rest of the

family from the pain of knowing what happened. They want to make it appear

that Mr. Hardy died in his own bed. From this moment, the lives of these three

people are irretrievably changed. In addition, Dr. Potter´s fortune is linked with

them because he speculates about the rare misadventure and they are all

driven forward facing through a raising tide of death and disease.

Their journey begins in February 27 th in the year of 1854. Besides Myrtle

and Dr. Potter, among the followers of George is also his wife Annie, their

children and George’s sister Beatrice, who is Dr. Potter’s wife. After three

months, they sail back home, because Constantinople becomes crowded with

transports and officials and there is an alarming increase in the number of flies

and stinging insects. Although, things really do not go as planned, Myrtle and Dr.

Potter stay with George. In August, during the concert party at Varna, George

behind the fire-eater recognizes, the duck-boy, Pompey Jones. His sudden

presence is astonishing for everyone and the lives of these four people are

joined once again. The conditions at the camp are horrific and they all must

confront the horrors of the war. Besides the military slaughter and surgical

butchery, there is also epidemic cholera, death and disease. Among the victims,

are also women and children.

As the days pass by, the strength of the enemy forces rises and they are

required to give support to the one of the divisions one foggy morning. However,

George is the only soldier; Myrtle, Pompey and Dr. Potter follow him, as well.

Miraculously, none of them gets hurt, but on their way back to the camp, one

of the wounded Russians appears and fires. George with his back to him falls

down. When Myrtle and Pompey arrive at the camp, Dr. Potter is already there.

He turned back there earlier, because of the mist.

Although this novel ends tragically and the death of Master Georgie at the

end can be surprising, it helps to give the meaning to the whole story.

2.2 Irony in the novel Master Georgie

The historical novel Master Georgie is written in original style and the author

Beryl Bainbridge interprets the events with irony, she goes through the

atmosphere of the mid 1800s and explores the attitudes towards class, love,

fate and war with the use of sexual undertones and overtones of the day.

Generally, we can say that irony is based on contrast. In every of the novels

written by Beryl Bainbridge, there is a disperancy between the ideal and the

actual, which is the quick force behind the course of events and it leads to

disaster. It is also pointed to human potentials and values, it means that the

novels not only reflect the tragedy and ironies of life, but also clearly speak of

the nature of being human and its possibilities. Although the novel Master

Georgie contains tragic, comic and romantic elements, the ironic stance works

to represent and inform at once.

In her novels, we can find the ironic contrast between illusion and reality, lie

and truth, disbelief and belief, love and war opposition, old and new, etc. In

this analysis, we will try to go through these ironic contrasts in every chapter of

this novel separately, although they will sometimes overlap in order to illustrate

the irony precisely.

It is essential to point out that the structure and form of this novel is based on

photographs. It is divided into six chapters; each of them represents a separate

photographic plate, a black and white picture, dating from 1846 in Liverpool to

1854 in the Crimea. Each of these six chapters is named after a photograph

taken in the course of its action, and each of these photographs comments

grimly on the action's meaning. The organization of the novel around these six

photographic images is probably based on the fact that the Crimean war was

first ever to be photographed.

Although George does not narrate any of these chapters and his story

begins and ends in front of the camera, the author uses other people as

cameras and lenses to give us the overall image of this character. Each section

is told in the first person by one of the three earlier mentioned characters.

These three voices record the series of strange events, bad judgements and

good intentions that shape the destiny of the main character George Hardy, but

also their own lives. The portrait of George that emerges is rendered in the

various shades of his significance to these individuals, particularly what he

means to each of them, and why.

As we have mentioned earlier, the novel Master Georgie is historical and if

we look at history, the archives themselves can misrepresent the past. We can

say that the archives are fragmentary and they create comparisons that are

artificial, even illusory. The author of this novel Beryl Bainbridge suggests that

photography is very good example of this. The thing about photographs is that

they capture a moment. But do they tell us the truth? Actually, the certain

moment can be a sort of the truth.

According to Beryl Bainbridge, "in a way photography is more of a cheat than

anything else." (www.historicalnovelsociety.org)9

It has the function of myth making, as well. In this novel, we have to reveal

the myth of perfection as an illusion and the fact of the truth as imperfection,

because when the present state is compared with the past or the future, it

always seems to be imperfect.

There is truly something magic that surrounds the art of photography, for

example, the angle of vision, different points of view or the observation of what

might really be happening. Throughout the novel Master Georgie we come

across six photographs. We will take a closer and ironic look at these particular

photographs that represent each of the six chapters of this novel.

9 <http://www.historicalnovelsociety.org/solander%20files/most_gruelling.htm>

2.2.1 Plate 1. 1846

This first plate is called Girl in the presence of death and takes place in

Victorian Liverpool, where George takes a photograph of his dead father Mr.

Hardy with his adoptive sister Myrtle besides him. It is posthumous photograph,

which shows his father peacefully lying in his own bed. If we take a brief look at

the photograph like this, we would probably consider the man alive and that is

the point, the photograph shows him seemingly alive. At least, it can appear

like this to us, because we as the readers have to add the ironic tone and we

can then consider the photograph as the ironic contrast between life and death.

Of course, Mr. Hardy is dead, but he seems to be alive, so that can be the first

contrast. More obvious one is that Myrtle is alive and Mr. Hardy is dead.

Besides the opposition between life and death, there is also one between young

and old. The reason is simple, because Myrtle is young and innocent girl and

Mr. Hardy is an old man. Furthermore, Myrtle experiences this situation as

a perfectly romantic one, even though it is obviously a grim one. "I fixed my

gaze on the dead man and told myself God would strike me blind if my eyelids

quivered. So intense was my concentration, it was only Master Georgie who

breathed in the sun-dappled room. Outside, the birds continued to twitter. All my

life, I thought I will stand at your side; and then I did blink, for the grandness of

such a notion welled up tears in my eyes." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 38)10 This is

the ironic contrast between the effect of transcendence for her, but for the

reader it has surely a different effect.

Consequently, there is an ironic opposition between the lie and the truth.

Although Master Georgie does not want Myrtle to lie, he asks her to hide what

she knows. "Remember, Myrtle, he died in bed from cessation of the heart" and

she thinks about it, "It was, after all, no more than the truth, if one didn’t dwell on

which particular bed." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 33)11

The truth is that he died in a bed of a prostitute and not peacefully in his own

bed, which is the lie.

10 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 11 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

The truth here can represent life as well, life that equals the truth. Considering

the fact that George wants to protect the rest of the family from how his father

died, we can think of this lie as follows. The lie can equal George´s love. He is

not worried on his account, but he cares about his mother as he clearly

expresses. "It´s my mother I have to protect." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 36)12

Furthermore, we can illustrate the ironic contrasts if we analyse the

relationships between the characters, especially their marriages.

Considering the previous, in this case the equality of love with lie can be

seen also in ironic contrast, because Georgie´s marriage is a big lie. In general,

marriage represents the conventional sign of union that should be achieved.

This union should be equal with love, but it is not the case of the marriage

between George Hardy and his wife Annie Prescott. None of them is happy in

this marriage. George is a homosexual, he has the aversion for women, and

that is probably the reason why he is not able to treat his wife, as he should.

That is why the point of a marriage as an existential quest is signified as

illusory. Similarly, the marriage between Dr. Potter and George´s sister Beatrice

is only an illusion. She dreams of running away to sea, which is the metaphor of

love and it is associated with belief. This belief is also very similar to religious

belief. In ironic contrast, Dr. Potter is under the supremacy of new sciences and

he believes that world was not created in six days, but in more like thousands of

years. As an opposition, Mrs. O´Gorman is very religious and does not care

about the permanency of rocks. "... her rock was the Kingdom of Heaven and

she didn´t want it shifted." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 8)13 This is the ironic contrast

between disbelief and belief.

We can consider the marriage of Dr. Potter and his wife Beatrice as a kind of

a battle, because the sea as a metaphor of love can be seen in ironic contrast

as a metaphor of life as a battle. They both have different opinions and

sometimes spar.

12 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 13 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

We can notice this when one of their visitors leaves their house. "Finally the

door slammed shut. There followed a silence broken by a slight scuffle."

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 30)14 Besides, they sometimes also pick on each other.

"B. I assure you it’s the truth. All that is required is a little feminine cunning. Of

which you have more than enough to spare, interjected a masculine voice, that

of Dr Potter and remarkably bitter in tone." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 29)15

Another case of the ironic contrast represents the marriage between old Mr.

Hardy and his wife Mrs. Hardy. However, we do not have the chance to know

these characters better, still it is obvious that the relationship between them is

not harmonic and that is the ironic contrast, because as we have mentioned

earlier, marriage is supposed to achieve union and the harmony should come

within. Mr. Hardy often goes to town and meets with his friends there. He

usually comes home very late and slightly drunk and he likes to visit disorderly

house, which turns to be his fatal mistake. His wife Mrs. Hardy is a neglected

woman, she spends her day mostly at home and slumber is her favourite

activity in the afternoon. Considering the fact, that her husband drinks and he is

unfaithful we can think he does not have a great regard for his wife. Their

relationship was probably different at the beginning when they were first joined,

but the love and harmony between them is now ironically over. Moreover, he

does not share the same bedroom with his wife; instead, he uses the blue room

that might represent a sorrow and therefore the domestic culture in which they

live.

It follows that irony is central if we think about relationships between people,

especially between relatives and members of the family. One of the

characteristic features of Beryl Bainbridge´s novels is the everyday reality of

family and personal life. The family is presented as the embodiment of the

promise of the ideal, but the reality or better-said actuality can be often

considered as imperfect. It means that family, as an image of subsistence is the

symbol of the imperfect condition of life as simulation.

14 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 15 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

Many people think that once they would like to establish a family. At least,

they would like to be a part of a family, because they have no one in the world.

This is the case of Myrtle, who is an orphan adopted by Hardy´s family. Even

though it happens by the accident, she is accepted by this family as one of the

members. We can consider this as quite ironic. At first, because she is a poor

little girl who has no one in this world and should be placed into the one of the

orphanages and suddenly she becomes a part of the rich Hardy´s family.

There is the ironic contrast between poor and rich people.

On the other hand, in terms of the ideal and the actual, her position in

Hardy´s family is very strange and overshadowed. Myrtle as a person is very

stoic, naive and we can say that her place in this family is quite unsetting. At the

beginning, the idea of take caring of this little girl seems to be ideal, but the

picture of the ideality for her is over after one year when the family brings home

a pet. "Miss Beatrice set up howling; she’d taken a fancy to me. She lost

interest the following year when Mr Hardy brought home the dog..." (Bainbridge,

1998, p. 4)16

Animals often feature in the fictional world and sometimes the characters´

situations or statuses are relative with those of animals. It means that

characters can often feel hunted, domesticated, instinctual or helpless. This can

lead to the reduction of the human status as such and direct an attitude to the

situation of the characters in parallel captured in physicality. The sentence of

physicality can emphasize the weakness of the human condition. Therefore,

characters can also get easily hurt by each other, which also happened to

Myrtle, after the family had brought home the dog. The result of this is that her

life has never been the same again and Myrtle becomes to face the reality,

which is no longer ideal. Before, she was fortunate and everything was ideal,

because Mrs. Hardy thought her to read and the old Mr. Hardy sometimes

chucked her under the chin and asked her how she did. Later, Mrs. O’Gorman

had taken her in hand. She is the only character in the novel that sometimes

beats Myrtle in order to get information of some events that happen in the

16 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

household of the Hardy´s family and all that for her own good, of course. It is

ironic for human being to be replaced by the dog, isn’t it?

It is essential to point out that the characters in the novel Master Georgie

can be victims of not only the physical world, but they are imprisoned in their

pasts and conventions of culture, as well. There is the frustration of the

absence of love, fulfilment, recognition and happiness that serve to uphold the

idea of personal suffering in a given circumstance, especially the culturally

insignificant individual that is also represented by the young girl Myrtle in this

novel. She in her love to the main character Master Georgie ironically moves

from the bad to the worse state. Her devotion for him is very intense, "I´d freeze

stiff for Master Gerogie." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 18)17, but her love is unfulfilled.

Although she follows him everywhere, he rarely acknowledges her, which

doesn´t dampen her adoration. However, is is Myrtle´s adoring view of Georgie

that refuses to recognize his sexual ambiguity. It means that the true view of

her endeavour takes precedence over the ironic truth about the false fiction on

which her pursuit is based, the fact being that Georgie as a man of her desires

is homosexual. Myrtle’s relationship with George is the dream of the illusion for

her that does not die. She follows him to the Crimea and stays with him there,

although we can think that she ironically fails to see that a better place for her is

at home with the children. The irony also lies in the fact that Myrtle was found

in Seel Street, but during her life, she is still a naive and starry-eyed girl.

It happens quite often that we as the readers are distanced from participation

in the event by the claim for ironic decoding of the narration. "Presently Master

Georgie emerged and began to button himself into his outdoor coat. His fur-

lined cloak, the one I tugged out later, hung abandoned in the hall closet. He´d

left off wearing it because Mr Hardy, returning merry with drink from mornings at

the Corn Exchange, had cried out once too often, ´O Vanitas vanitatem.´"

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 8)18 Ironically, this fur-lined cloak serves for putting the

corpse of old Mr. Hardy on it when his son and Pompey need to carry him

across the field. 17 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 18 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

Before we get to know about the dead of George’s father, we might only feel

that something bad or curious is going to happen. Although, we do not know

what colour is George’s outdoor coat, it can suggest that something bad is

going to happen. However, we would have to be very thoughtful readers. If we

are not, we would be definitely confused. That is exactly the aim of the author.

For instance, during the whole day, it is raining but it suddenly stops before

George and Myrtle reach the brothel. "Master Georgie was about to pass by

when she screamed again, shrill and menancing as a swooping gull. ... He

looked about him to see who would come to her aid – but what did a scream

amount to in such a wretched place?" (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 18)19 Even if we

start to think that something strange is going to happen, still the screams are

quite common in this part of the town, so there is nothing to be worried about.

Ironically, the street where the brothel is located and where the poor people live

is called Mount Street.

Consequently, there is the mixture of shadowy references, for example

screams and some fragmentary visions. "At last Master Georgie looked up and

the dread became palpable, for his face was drained of colour and his eyes as

bewildered as my own." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 20)20

Together with descriptive slown downs, all these serve to keep the reader´s

understanding of what is actually going on until the revelation. "And now it was

my turn to cry out, for it was Mr Hardy who lay there..." (Bainbridge, 1998, p.

21)21 This is very effectual and leads to the ironic quality of the presentation. It

means that the point lies more in the presentation than in the event.

Besides the ironic contrasts between love as union and love as lie, truth and

lie, belief and disbelief, etc., the ironic quality of presentation and the disperancy

between the ideal and the actual in this chapter, the author Beryl Bainbridge

also interprets some events with her significant ironic reasoning. For example,

we can see this, when a Punch and Judy show is interrupted by a collision

between a horse and a van. 19 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 20 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 21 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

''A vegetable cart had spilled cabbages on the road, all of which, save one,

had been recovered or run off with. The gentleman’s horse, which had see

service with a cavalry regiment, mistaking it for a puff adder, had reared up and

crashed down sideways, striking the van with its flank. The animal had recently

returned from Africa, where puff adders were quite common. They had not any

teeth but if they bit you their tongues imparted a poison that could turn your

blood to treacle.'' (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 12)22

22 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

2.2.2 Plate 2. 1850

This plate is entitled Veil lifted which refers to a photography of an ape

whose cataract should be removed. After the operation, George wants to take

photography of this ape, but it does not want to look at him. His friend William

Rimmer has to sing a lullaby to it, so it stares at him for a while. The sudden

vomiting of the ape spoils the last shot. This ape is supposed to be happy and

full of life, but as Pompey truly comments. ".... but what use was a world only

glimpsed from a cage?" (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 55)23 If we take only a shot of one

particular moment, we cannot really know what happened before or after. It

means, there is the ironic opposition between the ideal and the actual that

represents an illusion.

We have mentioned earlier, that in terms of the ideal and the actual, the

existence is a simulation and in this case, it can be invoked in the relative drawn

with wild animals in captivity. Pompey is afraid of the wild beast, because he

thinks it will be big and fearful. Ironically, "The ape took me by surprise. I had

expected it to be three times larger than myself and to find it wildly prowling its

cage, but it was not bigger than a small man and sat inert against the bars, ....

Fear left me." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 51)24 The ape is deprived of its wild state by

the limited freedom of movement, because it is alone and therefore separated

from other animals and from open space.

Similarly, the characters in the novel Master Georgie are sometimes left

behind and therefore separated from the others. There are certain oppositions

within the structure. For instance, when Pompey is ordered to help the

gatekeeper, "No sooner had I done so and the great iron gates had swung

inwards, than the carriage bowled up the drive, leaving me to follow on foot."

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 50)25 Here the desirable goal is stopped by the ironic

23 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 24 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 25 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

implication of the narrator. "I half thought of turning back, out of spite, but

curiosity got the better of me." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 50)26

Besides Pompey, Myrtle is also often left behind usually when she follows

George Hardy. "Master Georgie got irritated if I hung about too closely."

(Bainbridge, 1998. p. 14)27 She is sometimes waiting for him outside in the rain

or in winter. Furthermore, when Myrtle is asked to bring the fur-lined cloak from

the house and comes back with it, we can notice that she feels the state of non-

identity. "He neither thanked nor scolded, which made me sullen, for either

praise or censure would have been some indication of my existence."

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 31)28 There is also the separation from the family when

Myrtle is send away from home to boarding school, though she is not the real

daughter of the family, as Dr. Potter points out ironically. Similarly, his wife

Beatrice was sent away to boarding school. However, this well meant idea of

the family has ironically fatal consequences to both of these women. As we

have mentioned earlier, Beatrice wants to run away to sea. However, where

does this idea come from? "Mrs O’Gorman blamed education for putting the

notion into her head, because she’d never pined for anything so outlandish until

she was sent away to boarding school in Lichfield." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 26)29 It

means there lies the irony of the outcome.

In connection with Myrtle and her staying at the boarding school, there is

a conversation between Master Georgie and Pompey.

"P.´ What news of Myrtle? ´ I asked, bellowing against the sea wind.

MG. ´Miss Myrtle, ´ George corrected.

P. ´Miss Myrtle indeed, ´ I said. ´I never doubted it.´

MG. ´She´s on her way to becoming a lady, ´ he conceded.

P. ´Does she take to it? ´

MG. ´She blooms, ´ he replied." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 49)30

26 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 27 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 28 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 29 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 30 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

Although, the conversation represents the primary tool of communication,

ironically throughout the novel we have a feeling that people are having different

conversation, none of the characters goes into a long thing, we can say that the

dialogues between them are disjointed. Moreover, there is also the contrast

between Pompey´s words, because he says ´I never doubted it´, but he does

doubt it, as we can see later. "´Well, Myrtle, ´he said. ´Was it worth it? Being

turned into a lady´..." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 146)31 Pompey feels that Myrtle has

been raised above him and his ambiguity is also clearly seen when he thinks,

"All I ever wanted, as regards Myrtle, was the recognition that she and I were of

a kind,..." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 204)32

We can find many of the ironic contrasts also in terms of culture. At first,

there is the contrast between old and new. Old culture is represented by

Hardy´s household that is full of furniture. There is a parlour, fire, white fabric

chair, cooler for port wine, piano, vase, Persian runner, etc. On the other hand,

new culture is represented by the prostitute’s room. There is one brass bed,

a grate, one small round table bearing a bottle and a glass.

Concerning the conventions of culture, the whole situation about the dead of

Mr. Hardy is a good example of irony, and therefore full of contrasts. At first, he

as a representative of middle class dies in a brothel. With George, there are

also two children Myrtle and Pompey who help him to move his body. The

corpse of Mr. Hardy is sat against a sycamore tree until his son and the young

boy bring the Punch and Judy van that serves as the marionette theatre for

children during the day. Mr. Hardy looses his hat that is a symbol of male

identity and culture and this hat ends on Pompey´s head when they move the

body inside the house. In contrast, Mr. Hardy did not need pennies on his lids.

If he did need them that would be the sign of non-belonging to the culture to

which he certainly did belong.

Among the signifiers of male identity and social identity, we can also find a

stick. When George and Pompey have a conversation with an old man on the

31 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 32 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

shore, he has a stout stick and George addresses him as Sir, which signifies

that he belongs to the culture. On the other hand, the stick represents maleness

and the man is under the mercy of his daughters. There is the ironic opposition

between the manhood and women hood.

Throughout this plate, we also come across the contrast between culture

and nature. For instance, the describing of the environment is aborted with

technical improvements. "... the wind carrying the sickly sweet odour of damp

grain, the air raucous with the screech of foraging gull. We were forced to go at

no more than a walk through the crush of vehicles juddering in either direction.

Near Brunswick Tavern a shipment of cattle, just then unloaded from Ireland

and headed for the abattoir, came slithering and jostling across out path."

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 47)33 Even though, we would probably expect that the

description of the nature would evoke some positive feelings the result is rather

negative.

As we have mentioned earlier, the author Beryl Bainbridge explores also the

attitudes towards fate in the novel, and therefore we would probably expected

George who gives the title to the novel Master Georgie and being referred to as

"Master" to be more in control of his own fate. However, the expectation has an

opposite effect. Firstly, he is in control of his mother. He becomes a doctor,

because he wants to help his mother who has a malfunction of the thyroid, but

ironically in her case it still growing, so he cannot really help her. Secondly, he

is imprisoned in his marriage and it seems that he got married only because of

the social conventions. Annie goes with him to Turkey otherwise it was not

planned. "´She insists on it, Potter, ´ he said. ´In the circumstances, how can

I refuse? She is, after all, my wife.´" (Bainbridge, 1998, p.70)34 It means, that

he as a man is under the control of his own wife and mother. We can see

George’s living as a conflict, as well. Although, he is a man there are mostly

women around him. George is also imprisoned in his own mind and in his world

of chaos and frustration. He gives money to Pomey that should be given to the

33 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 34 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

prostitute, because he wants her to forget about the mishap in the brothel.

Pompey buys a camera instead of doing as he is told and it is for simple reason,

because George is so confused to see the reality. "He was a fool in the ways of

the world, the woman in question being to addled with drink to remember

anything longer than the immediate moment." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 45)35 It is

needless and therefore ironic to spend money like this. Furthermore, "She had

few teeth and her mouth resembled a dark hole." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 18)36

which means that she is a passive participant who distance herself bodily and

mentally from the event as an act. "´It weren´t nothing to do with me.´"

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 20)37 She clearly expresses, but George ironically fails to

recognize it.

He could not be possibly less in control over his fate, he leads himself to

the war, even though as a doctor, but the war is not a hospital and instead of

the real operations he mainly does amputates. We can say that from Master

Georgie who is a doctor becomes a butcher. Isn’t it ironic? On the other hand,

the war for George can represent and escape from society that makes him to be

tortured by guilt over his homosexual impulses. He leaves the present for the

better future, but ironically, there is no future for him, because he dies.

In comparison with his father whom Georgie both fears and admires and

who had been shaken from George’s footstall, because of how he died, it is

very ironic to see that George becomes a very similar man. He drinks more, we

suppose in order to forget the misfortune and he also sometimes sings the

favourite father’s song ´Mother Dear, I am Fading Fast´. These might be the

signifiers of the lack of control in the fictional world, as well. Therefore, what

seemed to be an ideal thing to do now appears to have fatal implications.

Furthermore, there is a contrast between how an old Mr. Hardy died and how

does George. The old man on the shore tells George. "There are worse ways of

leaving this world than from the swift kiss of lead." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 61)38

35 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 36 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 37 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 38 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

Considering the fact that Master Georgie really dies from the ´swift kiss of lead´,

there is no better way of leaving the world for him, however ironic this idea

might be.

In terms of the ideal and the actual, there is irony in the fate of the young

man Pompey Jones. He as an adult now should have the freedom of movement

and action, but his freedom is limited by the performance of adults. Once the

footman tells him that, he is not a photographer, but "´Though perhaps you

come in useful when trundling a wheelbarrow.´" (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 57)39

which touches Pompey. "I had been melancholy on account of the footman

putting me in my place, and angry with myself for having risen to his bait ... One

day, I shouted aloud...One day.“ (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 59)40 Pompey really one

day comes to Turkey, but ironically, ´only´ as a photographer’s assistant again.

Moreover, what is probably even more ironic is the fact that from photographer

he becomes a soldier and has to kill people.

Although Pompey is an adult now he is still not able to realize what

consequences can have the joking with the tiger’s rug. These are the broken

wrist of Mrs. Hardy and Annie´s awarness to have other children. There is also

the contrast between the lie and the truth. Every time the joking with this tiger’s

rug is mentioned in the novel, Pompey still lies, he does not know anything

about it, even though it is he who did it and he suspects that Dr. Potter knows

the truth anyway.

To sum up, throughout this plate, we come across the disperancy between

ideal and actual that reflects the reality as an illusion. There is also an

opposition in the structure in connection with separation of the characters from

the others and leads to the ironic implication of the reader. Besides the irony of

the outcome, we can notice many examples of ironic contrasts, namely, the

opposition between culture and nature, and the opposition between old and new

within the culture.

39 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 40 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

2.2.3 Plate 3. 1854

A very nice example of delusion is this photographic plate that is called Tug-

of-war beside The Sweet Waters of Europe and it is taken during the sports

day. Everyone who poses for this photograph tries to hide some of his physical

defects, for example, Dr. Potter tries to hide his big belly, George’s wife Annie

wants to appear smaller, so she slips off her shoes, etc. Behind them officers

versus men, progress a tug-of-war.

The irony doesn’t lie only in the fact, that the family members want to appear

to look differently like they do, but this photography is also the last family one

before the war really begins and some of the members will go back home and

one, concrete Master Georgie, will never see them again or better said they will

never see him again.

There is also the contrast between the officers and men, because they play

the game tug-of-war against each other, the real war is in front of them, and

they will have to cooperate. Another ironic contrast lies in the fact that the navy

is holding a sport day in The Sweet Waters of Europe, which is a resort popular

with all the Turkish rank. "The Place was built on a wide plateau, its grounds

planted with trees and flowering shrubs...The gardens beyond were extensive

and artistic blend of lawns, rockeries and herbaceous borders." (Bainbridge,

1998, p. 94) 41 We can think of this place as of heavenly gardens that is

ironically visited by soldiers and officers who do not symbolize a peace, at all.

In connection with the posing for the photograph it is essential to point out

that what is already known to the characters in the fictional world is only

gradually uncovered to the readers. The author Beryl Bainbridge does not tell

us many things straight away. It is mainly the reader’s ability to extrapolate

crucial information from what is, or better said, what is not said. She does not

waste any of the conversations and the reader must pay attention to her every

word. It means that we can uncover the formal irony.

41 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

Considering this, we particularly mean the fact that throughout the novel we

begin to suspect that Myrtle is somehow connected to Master Georgie´s

children. In addition, when posing for this photograph Dr. Potter wants to hide

his belly with holding one of the George’s children in his arms, "... George

ordered me to give it to its mother, who was already clutching the younger infant

to her breast." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 99)42 We probably think that the mother is

Annie – the wife of George Hardy, but reading the following lines, we come to

realize that our earlier suspicion was right. "´Be still, my sweet babes, ´ Myrtle

murmured, as they leapt like fish in her arms." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 99)43 After

this moment, there is no hesitation anymore. Myrtle is the mother of Master

Georgie´s children. In this case, the knowledge between the fictional world and

the reader is finally complete. Before, the effect was ironic, because irony was

alternately subjected to the world and to the reader, and therefore the

knowledge was not complete.

Throughout the novel Master Georgie, we come to realize that there are also

the ironic contrasts between the narrations of the three characters. These three

narrators are very different and the events they describe and their thoughts

often clash amusingly. For instance, Mr. Hardy whose uncomfortable death has

set events in motion is remembered by Myrtle as, "...cheerful and lacking in

malice..." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 23)44, in contrast, Dr. Potter recalls him as, "...a

bully and a fraud..." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 75) 45 Considering what we have

already mentioned about Mr. Hardy, we can therefore regard Dr. Potter, who is

the narrator of this plate, as the most objective observer of the situations and

whose thoughts can be trusted by readers. Throughout this plate and his

narration, we come across several examples of verbal irony.

42 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 43 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 44 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 45 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

It starts from the beginning of his narration of this plate as he describes their

journey to Constantinople as an "ill – advised excursion". (Bainbridge, 1998, p.

69)46

Particularly, because there are women and children among the group who

would be certainly for no use in the following situation that the war surely will be.

For the English people the staying is really an excursion. They behave

differently in Turkey as they would surely behave at home, in England. They

drink together, they go to visit the gardens and they all enter the theatre for the

concert, as if they were at home and not in the land, where the war is in

progress. Dr. Potter notices that there is a difference in this place from the past;

particularly he can see a lot of English influence there. Considering the previous

facts, "... for the town was swarming with English folk and we were never alone

in our feverish activities. Casual acquaintances, of the sort who, in the sensible

confines of our own country, would scarcely have rated a nod, leapt overnight

into the category of bosom friend." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 83)47 It means, there is

the ironic contrast between old and new culture, because of the modern English

influence and Dr. Potter describes the behaviour of people with irony, as well.

For instance, when his wife Beatrice becomes a kind of friend with Mrs. Yardley,

he tells her. "´She has a reputation, ´ I warned Beatrice." (Bainbridge, 1998, p.

84)48 he means it ironically, because she is the mistress of one of the colonels

of the Guards. Furthermore, Dr. Potter ironically comments. "Meanwhile, we

continued on our merry round." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 84)49 They also visit the

performance of dancing dervishes that he finds very ridiculous in the extreme

and later expresses. "Like dervishes, we twirled from one diversion to another.

At yet another picnic in the hills outside the town, the women’s chatter rising like

the twitterings of starlings, a premonition of impending disaster took such

a strong hold of me that I was forced to leave the group and walk to a pinnacle

46 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 47 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 48 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 49 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

some distance off." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 86)50 Dr. Potter separates himself not

only by walking some distance off, but he also reads and quotes from the books

as he speaks, which symbolizes his escape from life. In contrast, George’s wife

Annie is allergic to books.

If we think why people behave as they do in such circumstances, we would

probably come to the resolution that the war breaks down the class systems

known to the characters in England and life and death become the only things

that really matters. Before, there were contrasts between the words of the

characters and their performance. For instance, Beatrice dreams of sea and

when she is on a boat, she prefers dry land to sleep on and her husband has to

find her a hotel, but later, she does not complain about the conditions anymore.

As we have mentioned earlier, the narration of Dr. Potter represents a very

good example of verbal irony, and therefore we cannot omit his ´love´ for music.

Although, the rhythm of music also metaphorically invokes an image of

culture as a repeatable and controllable pattern, Dr. Potter is not a lover of

music and he ironically points to this fact several times. "I am not a lover of

music, though I once had the luck... to attend a piano recital enlivened by the

soloist unexpectedly somersaulting from the platform." (Bainbridge, 1998, p.

76) 51 The word ´luck´ sounds ironic in his expression, although he felt

comfortable and that only because of the comic situation that suddenly

happened there. Similarly, he describes the muezzin’s call to prayer very

ironically as, "... the shrill humming which heralded each sunrise was not, as

feared, the persistent whine of a giant mosquito ...“(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 83)52

and when his wife Beatrice expresses "´How melodious, ´" (Bainbridge, 1998, p.

83)53 he thinks the right opposite of it. If we consider that Dr. Potter does not like

music, we can therefore see the contrast here.

Moreover, he joins the opera that is the last outing planned by Beatrice and

he has to wear his best clothes, because she wants it like that. There is the 50 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 51 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 52 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 53 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

ironic contrast between the fact that the English put on their best clothes and

the theatre is such a horrible place, full of squalor and bad stenches. Although

they have a box that is elevated from the dirt, Dr. Potter does not tell his wife

Beatrice that, "I brushed two cockroaches from her seat before she sat down."

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 100)54

This evening in opera also bursts out into jealousy and aggression and it is

a very good example of irony of the outcome, because George and Dr. Potter

make up and lie to Naughton, a young gentleman, who becomes very interested

in Myrtle, that she has a fiancé among the hussars. "´He´s a captain in the 11th

Hussars.´ Then he did leave me, for who could compete with a peacock of the

dazzling Light Brigade, however imaginary?" (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 77) 55

Moreover, later George ´jokes´ again when he tells him, "...´he has treated my

sister disgracefully. She will never be his.´" (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 91)56 This is

the reason why Naughton during the opera attacks the hussar who, of course,

doesn´t have a clue of what is going on. Ironically, Dr. Potter enjoys himself,

because the situation is the best in comparison with what he has yet seen on

stage. "For the first time I grasped the purpose of music, my emotions being

considerably heightened by the continued playing of the orchestra – the

unfortunate fellow landed to the accompaniment of percussion." (Bainbridge,

1998, p. 103)57 We can see that Dr. Potter even starts to enjoy the music,

although again enlightened by the comic incident. What is probably even more

ironic is the fact that Naughton is shipped back home and later there comes

a rumour that he goes bankrupt. In contrast, Myrtle changes a lot. Her cheeks

are filled out and her throat and arms became rounded. "...it was though Myrtle,

previously lurking in mist, had now emerged into the light." (Bainbridge, 1998, p.

105) 58 Moreover, Dr. Potter ascribes this change to the fact that the

troublesome gentleman Naughton is no longer on scene. Another ironic contrast

54 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 55 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 56 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 57 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 58 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

lies in the fact, that while Myrtle looks better, Dr. Potter and George apparently

loose weight and they look miserable.

Considering this, we can say that the war obviously changes everyone.

Besides, the change in external look, there is also an internal change. George’s

brother-in-law notices the change in his heart and finds it touching. At first,

George Hardy does not hesitate to visit hospitals of Scutari and later he gives

up his patronage of the Duke of Wellington public house. He writes many letters

to his mother Mrs. Hardy and even to Mrs. O´Gorman. Even he tries so hard to

save the lives of people; there is ironically a lack of support, because the Duke

is inexperienced.

There is again the disperancy between the ideal and the actual. For

instance, we would probably except that people will heal in the hospital, but

ironically, the opposite is the truth, because people die earlier in the hospital

than in the camp. There are so many dead people and still no shot have been

fired. People simply die because of cholera and venereal diseases, there are no

sufficient medical supplies, and for example, George helps one man to set his

broken lower jaw with the covers of a book – The Wide, Wide World. Isn’t it

ironic? There is also the military bureaucracy, George has to fill up many

documents about the wounded and when he wants some boots for himself.

At the same time, the author shows that someone’s life can affect others,

either for better or for worse. For example, one night a young officer slumps

over dead into his dinner and those around him sit quietly, as if not wanting to

disturb him. The author then says him goodbye: "When at last he was carried

out, Myrtle rose and tenderly shook the bread crumbs from his hair."

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 107)59 We can actually only glimpse the frames like this

one, but the narrative is so strong, that we cannot really forget them. The

contrast lies in the fact that even the situation is horrific we can still find the

beauty there.

59 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

To summarize, in the course of events in this plate we come across various

examples of verbal irony, which is the result of the objective narration. Besides

many illustrations of ironic contrasts, for instance, the opposition between peace

and war, the contrast between the words and performance of the characters,

present and past or the opposition between old and new, horror and beauty,

etc., there is also formal irony that causes the ironic effect before the knowledge

between the readers and characters is finally complete.

2.2.4 Plate 4. August 1854

The fourth photograph is taken after the concert party in Varna, that is also

the title of this plate, and it will be send to England so that English people can

see that the troops are having a good time enjoying themselves. It is very ironic,

because the war soon begins and Dr. Potter´s remark is very well taken, "those

captured by the camera would shortly be dead." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 145)60

It is the concert troupe that is posing for this photograph and it is particularly

ironic, because among the performers are also two soldiers of a line who

previously belonged to a circus troupe in Paris. It means, if we have been

previously wondering about the inexperienced military officers, the soldiers are

also inexperienced and therefore the whole war can represent a big circus.

As we have mentioned earlier, one of the standard feature of the novels

written by Beryl Bainbridge is the characters´ lack of control over the events.

Also in this plate, we come across this feature, when Myrtle with Mrs. Yardley

goes for a trip into the hills above a lake. This well-meant trip ends with an

accidental death of a young man.

The author Beryl Bainbridge takes events frozen in time and brings them into

life and death, but when she describes death, the images that stand out are

more powerful that the blood and horrors. For instance, in this case we can see

the cherries in the lap of a dead soldier, propped against the tree: ''The pink had

quite gone from his cheeks and his skin was mottled, like meat lain too long on

the slab. . . . Flies crawled along his fingers and buzzed at his mouth.''

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 127-128)61 Before, his cheeks were rosy and now the

pink is gone, he was alive and suddenly he is dead. There is the contrast

between the cherries that can symbolize life and beauty and the flies that are

ugly and irritating. Another ironic opposition represents the contrast between life

(cherries) and death (the dead body of the young soldier).

60 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 61 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

The dead soldier is there with his friend and it is expressed that they are staring

at each other. It is ironic, because the soldier is now dead and therefore he

cannot behave like this anymore.

Furthermore, we as the readers can watch and listen, but we cannot really

experience the same as any of the characters. "Mrs. Yardley jerked the jackets

from the trees and covered that purple face from view. It made no difference;

the birds kept on singing and the men went on staring." (Bainbridge, 1998, p.

128)62 Of course, it does not make any difference, because the character’s

experience is very strong and internal. In their minds still lies the picture of the

man, either alive or dead.

This is not the only accident that happens during this trip. The brief excursion

involves also an encounter with a three-legged black dog and when Myrtle and

Mrs. Yardley accept the hospitality of one of the farmers it ends with a goat

giving birth. In these cases, we as the readers are the witnesses to these

situations, but it does not explicitly help us to relate to the scenes of the world.

Before the goat gives birth, there is the confusion on both sides; we mean by

this that the characters and the readers are confused, because the scene

evokes the confusion. The readers and the characters think that something bad

is going to happened. "All at once a curious giggling sound came from

somewhere close to the vineyard wall. The bow-legged man swaggered off, and

shortly returned carrying a struggling goat which he dropped on to its feet on the

table." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 123)63 The goat is struggling and therefore we

might think that its life is going to be ended. It is not only us, but also Mrs.

Yardley. "´If he´s going to cut its throat in front of us,´ Mrs Yardley promised, ´I

shall scream.´" (Bainbridge, 1998, 123)64 However, the result is opposite. The

goat not only survives, but it also gives life to a little one. It all leads to the fact

that we are the objects of the author’s ironic manipulation.

62 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 63 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 64 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

In connection with the dogs that are generally considered to be the best

friends of man there is a contrast in this novel, because dogs here are vague,

they bark and they kill the other dogs.

We can say that the negativity in the development of events in Beryl

Bainbridge´s fictional world is for the most part compounded with the frustration

of expectancy and desire. In this plate, we particularly mean the fact that

promises are never fulfilled. During the concert, George promises to Myrtle that

he will come to her later, but he does not although she is waiting for him.

"Georgie is coming, I whispered. I fancied I could smell onions, though it may

have been the memory of the fire-eater’s act that haunted my nose."

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 141)65 The irony does not lie only in the fact, that he

doesn’t come to her, but also in the situation when she finally finds George

sleeping in the tent beside the fire-eater, who is no on else like the duck-boy,

Pompey Jones.

We have already mentioned that sometimes we as the readers can feel

confused, because we understand less than the characters. We can feel

frustrated at knowing as little as the characters. Therefore, there has to be

mentioned further aspect of knowledge. The reader can also feel superior,

because he/ she are placed in a position of knowing and understanding more

than the characters. In connection to this third point of view, we as the readers

are superior to Myrtle in her relationship with George. She does not know that

he is a homosexual; she comes to realize it only in the above-mentioned

situation. What we know about George is only partially revealed to Myrtle who is

not able to see it, because she is in love with him and consequently the effect is

ironic. We notice his ambiguity particularly through the eyes of the other

narrators Dr. Potter and Pompey Jones. This young boy is the one who really

experiences George’s weakness for men. Throughout the novel, George tells

Pompey several times. "You’re a good boy." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 62) 66

Because of George´s sly smile that symbolize constraint he runs away, but

65 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 66 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

ironically he does not after the concert party in Varna. After that night, Dr.

Potter brightly declares. "... messing about with Pompey Jones would do him

more good than a week of rest." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 146)67

Consequently, we can say that the effects of the narrative arrangement of

knowledge rely on the reader’s remembrance of detail, even if we think that the

particular lines or words of the text are indifferent.

Both Pompey and Myrtle have the sexual relationship with Georgie, but there

is a contrast that lies in Master Georgie´s bearing on each of them. While

George searches for the company of the young boy Pompey, Myrtle has to

make a pursuit to spend some time with him. "... , the time I´d come back

from being made into a lady and gone to Georgie´s room in moonlight."

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 144)68

Considering this, we can say that Pompey is Myrtle’s rival in her love for

George Hardy, and therefore this emulation can symbolize war. Moreover, they

all meet again during the war that is ironic. Mainly, they are all united by their

shared predicament of being in the futile pursuit of an ideal. We have mentioned

earlier that they share the secret about the George´s father death, which they

make to appear to look ideal. Ironically, it seems like something very similar is

going to happen. The characters are together again and the photographer’s van

that Pompey brings with him to Crimea is according to Myrtle,"... a curious

vehicle, painted all over in white, its sides slotted with glass windows."

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 145)69 Ironically, this curious vehicle later appears to be

the Punch and Judy van that served as the puppet show some years ago. "Two

of the Windows have gone and the paintwork is much scored, revealing streaks

of purple and a curious golden letter, either U or N." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 176)70

It seems to be very ironic, if we consider that they all escape what appears to

be insufficient for them only in order to face something that looks even worse.

67 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 68 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 69 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 70 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

Now we are going to illustrate some of the facts and situations that can be seen

throughout this plate and in which we can notice the contrasts.

Firstly, there is the opposition that can be seen in the situation, which Myrtle

and Mrs. Yardley witness during their trip into the hills.

"We skirted the river and passed a number of women washing clothes... Close

by, the Bulgarian provision men who supply the camp with meat were hacking

at slaughtered sheep and flinging the bloody guts into the water." (Bainbridge,

1998, p. 118)71 It is very ironic if we consider that women want to wash the

clothes in a bloody river.

Secondly, from a different point of view, there is the contrast between culture

and nature. During the trip Mrs. Yardley notices a huge bird above their heads

and later says that Harry, "...´is very fond of birds,´ Mrs Yardley said, speaking

of her colonel. ´He shoots them in Norfolk.´" (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 124)72 The

birds represent nature while the shooting symbolizes culture. Furthermore, we

would hardy expect that someone who is ´very fond of birds´ shoots them.

To sum up, in this plate we can notice the negativity in the development of

events that is represented by the characters´ lack of control in the fictional world

and results in accidental death that leads to the ironic contrast between life and

death. Besides, there are the ironic contrasts between love and war and

between culture and nature. In connection with the frustration of expectancy

and desire, there is the ironic contrast between the promise and performance of

the characters that results in the fact, that the desires of the others are never

fulfilled.

In terms of knowledge, there is the ironic manipulation in connection with

reader and characters and particularly we mean the fact that we know as little

as the characters. On the other hand, we as the readers decode some

knowledge faster than characters, which leads to the ironic effect.

71 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 72 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

2.2.5 Plate 5. October 1854

Funeral procession shadowed by Beatrice is the title that belongs to the fifth

photography, which is taken during the funeral of the dead soldiers. Many of the

corpses are barefooted and wrapped only in old tents or pieces of oil – cloth,

the caskets are only for the officers. During the funeral, Dr. Potter conceives of

his wife Beatrice in her weekend night-gown and thinks about the camera and

its sheepishness to capture whatever is going on in one’s mind. "A man can be

standing there, face expressive of grief, and inside be full of either mirth or lust."

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 180)73

There is the ironic contrast between the facts, that the alive men are standing

there motionless like dead while the poor dead bodies, "stirred as the winding

cloths flapped in the wind." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 180)74 The alive men are also

bareheaded which is associated with their lack of identity, if not with no identity.

This lack of identity also constitutes one end of a hierarchical scale of identities.

It is true, because these men do not have any of their belongings anymore and

Dr. Potter thinks about it earlier. "I admit I didn´t know who I was any more – my

bearings had gone astray along with my trousers." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 110)75

It might sound ironic, but considering the fact, that the burial ground was

once an orchard, which signifies a harmonious integration of culture and nature,

we conclude that only death can bring about the real transcension.

In connection with dreaming, we have to mention that this activity of mind is

probably the only thing that keeps people on trying to survive, although it

symbolizes non – life or non – nature.

There is a nice example of an opposition between the nature of life and non-

nature or non-life when Dr. Potter dreams about love-making, which symbolizes

the nature of life, with his wife on Sunday. He dreams and we have mentioned

above that dreaming represents the non – life or non – nature.

73 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 74 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 75 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

Throughout the novel, we come across several dreamings of Dr. Potter. "I have

taken to dreaming, and not only at night. In the past – what years have turned to

dust in the space of eight weeks – it was the approach of darkness that brought

on fantasies." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 155)76 He mainly dreams about his wife

Beatrice. Before the separation from her, he dwells nostalgically on his long-

gone bachelor days, because he is a victim of the myth that life is the pursuit of

manly activities and manly virtues and therefore at the beginning he tries to

handle his visions. "To cope with this visitation, for I am not yet mad, I reminded

myself that a thirst assuaged by water pissed in by dying men and a stomach

subjected to hunger were guaranteed to spore hallucinations." (Bainbridge,

1998, p. 155)77

Dr. Potter ironically fails to see that his true values are domestic

achievement and intimacy. However, Beatrice is now back home and he begins

to fancy the visions of his wife, because he is separated from her and from

home. "´I am a man accustomed to pass the hours in the reading of books,´... ´I

am a man accustomed to sleeping against the curve of his wife´s back.´"

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 174)78

We have presented earlier in the theoretical part that irony and nostalgia go

together in postmodern. It is essential to point out that nostalgia does not repeat

memory, but it deals with two different times, and insufficient present and

idealized past. That is why the characters refer to past time, they dream of their

homes in order to escape the awful present. People do not know who they are

anymore, they loose their minds. For instance, Dr. Potter passes by one soldier

who is holding his rifle the wrong way round and later he shots himself in his

leg. He goes back to him and they talk together.

"´Did you see what happened, sir? ´

´No,´I replaied. ´I was some way ahead.´

´My hand must have slipped, sir.´

76 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 77 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 78 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

´No doubt from tiredness,´I said. ´One loses concentration.´

´That´s it, sir,´he said eagerly. ´Me mind was on other things.´" (Bainbridge,

1998, p. 178)79 And this soldier does later speak of his home and that was

a pie-seller. According to this Dr. Potter later ponders, "Would it, ..., have been

less an act of cowardice if he had shot himself in the temple rather than the

foot?" (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 179)80

People really try to help the others by talking to them of home and mother

and loved ones, but later it ironically fails to work. The reason for this probably

lies in the fact, that also some people who still have at least some presence of

mind become to move around like dead men and they trudge by the corpses

and dying people without a glance.

Besides returning to loved persons and home, the characters often return to

their childhood. It is particularly the cultural context that has the capacity of

referring to the childhood, which according to Thomas Ziehe´s understanding of

the symbol as a sign, belongs to "the first horizon of the irrevocable". (Wennı,

1993, p. 163) 81 In Dr. Potter´s case, the horizon of the irrevocable is

remythologized as the factual guide to the present situation. When he was

a small boy his father brought him from his tours a toy four-wheeled cart, but as

he remembers, "Before I was put to bed I had dismantled the cart into its

various pieces. It was an act propelled by curiosity, rather than a destructive

urge." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 167)82 We can say that this dismantling of the car is

the direct guide for Dr. Potter for his love of geology, because the earth also

consists of some ´parts´ that keep it together. Once he takes Beatrice to see the

generic character of the porphyries, granites, etc., but ironically, there is only

a huge amount of a crustacean. Similarly, in Turkey he thinks that the

ascending slopes are formed of nummulite limestone but it later appears to be

the Jura rock. He follows George in order to be an observer of the land, but he

79 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 80 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 81 Wennı, E. 1993. Ironic Formula in the Novels of Beryl Bainbridge 82 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

is so weak that he can only think about past. "´I was sold a melon in

Balaclava.´" (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 163)83

In contrast, George has had to tell him something different, because later he

expresses. "... its melon days are over." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 165)84

In this plate, we likewise notice the presence of contrasts. For instance,

when George is attached to the Royal North British Fusiliers he gets except

some old clothes, a tin of leeches, etc. also leather apron that is almost new,

but later as Dr. Potter notices, "... his duties being heavy and his leather apron

much stained." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 166) 85 The apron can symbolize the

importance of protection, though it ironically does not protect George because

he finally dies.

There is also an opposition between female and male look. For example, the

women are turned away from boarding besides Myrtle who, ".... by virtue of her

peasant dress and brown complexion, and leading her pony laden with

baggage, was let by without hindrance." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 156)86 Later she

cuts her hair in order to get rid of the lice and can be therefore taken for a boy.

On the other hand, she is a woman among men who generally do not like to see

them in the war. It means that she wants to look like a boy, because she wants

to fit together with others. Furthermore, she knows now that George is

a homosexual and prefers boys. Considering this, she probably wants to attract

him in this way.

Similarly, Pompey is dressed in a tunic of scale during his fire-eating

performance, and therefore could be taken for a woman. "With his wig of black

ringlets and the rouge on his cheeks, he could have passed for a girl, and

a handsome one at that." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 138)87 Some people even shout

out when they see his legs that are admirable. Although someone would

83 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 84 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 85 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 86 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 87 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

consider him a woman, he is certainly not. However, it can evoke to us that he

has grown his moustache in order to not be mistaken for a female.

In connection with men and women, a dinner takes place in the quarters of

Captain Jerome.

Dr. Potter and George go there, but they do not invite Myrtle, because she

accompanies another woman. However, Dr. Potter thinks.

"It was thought impolite to ask one woman without the other – also it would have

meant less to eat all round." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 171) 88 The result is

particularly ironic, because two other gentlemen join them, so there is no so

much food anyway.

To summarize, throughout this plate we mainly come across the ironic

contrasts that are based on various sights of the content. In connection with

culture, there is the loss of the characters´ identities that leads to the ironic

contrast between life and death and vice-versa, there is also an opposition

between non-life, represented by dreaming, and life. We can also notice the

ironic contrast between male and female look and state. Furthermore, there is

the disperancy between the ideal and the actual. Characters want to experience

something what seems to be ideal for them, but the actuality is different and

leads to separation and dreaming.

88 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

2.2.6 Plate 6. November 1854

In the novel Master Georgie, nothing is save and easy. The life of the main

character George Hardy begins and ends in front of the camera. The end is

bitter, because after the battle of Inkerman, one of the photographers wants to

pose a group of survivors and the reason is, "to show the folks back home."

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 212)89 The balance is not right so he asks to fetch one

more soldier. Pompey Jones brings the dead body of George whose presence

does not keep the photographer from ordering the group, "Smile boys, smile."

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 212)90 This saying also gives the title to this sixth and last

plate. The irony lies in the fact that the photographer clearly does not

experience the same horrors as the soldiers and the only thing he cares about

is the right balance. Although the soldiers survive, they are all torn and therefore

it is very ironic to ask them to smile. We conclude that the men are torn

because of the horrific moments they experience during the war and what can

help us is the focus on their bodily movements and postures, as well. In this

case, it is obviously described in the situation when Pompey can see the

photographer with the soldiers. "I walked back to the van and found the

photographer nearby with his camera set up and five men slouched before him."

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 211)91 The focus on this visible bodily movement draws

attention to the men’s emotional and spiritual state of frustration. Considering

this, how can they possibly smile? Furthermore, this sense of textual control as

narrative is opposed to the lack of control over reality that the narrative evokes

and consequently signalizes the ironic tension between them.

The ironic contrast also lies in the facticity that the photographer wants

a group of survivors and therefore the presence of George’s dead body is

particularly ironic and only stresses the idea of photography being nothing more

than a pure cheating.

89 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 90 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 91 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

"I walked back to George... humped him over my shoulder and carried him to

the camera. The men were now standing and I propped him between them. He

slumped forward and the soldier to his right supported him round the waist."

(Bainbridge, 1998, p. 212)92

As we have mentioned earlier in the first plate, sometimes the effects can

lead to the ironic quality of the presentation. Similarly, in this plate, the weather

is awful, it rains all the time and there is even a mist. The scene is very dramatic

and we almost want to holler at the characters that they should get out of there.

"Our progress was slow and lurching ... In places the oak bushes grew thickly,

impeding the wooden wheels of the cart. At intervals the mist cleared and the

grey columns of marching men could be seen slipping and sliding through the

grey daylight." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 202)93

Moreover, there are the ironic contrasts between the sounds of the bombs,

shots from muskets, groaning of the dying men and the silence. "It was over in

less than a minute and we were through it, unharmed, and it grew quiet again,

as though a door had slammed shut." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 203)94 We as the

readers can think that something bad is going to happen, but every time we

expect it, it simply does not turn like that. Both Pompey and Myrtle miraculously

survive and later also Dr. Potter. "I opened my mouth to shout a warning, and

just as it leapt to tear him apart he swerved aside as though pushed; it hurtled

on and took off the head of a man in front. I reckoned an angel kept watch over

Potter." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 209)95

If we thought at the beginning that only fate matters, throughout this plate we

come to realize that the survival is purely a mater of chance. The ironic quality

of presentation lies furthermore in the fact that after the bombing, everyone

survives, including George and when the fog is gone, we come to think about

satisfying end in the form of a happy closure. What happens is the right

92 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 93 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 94 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 95 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

opposite, because in the most unexpected situation George is killed by one of

the Russians. Of course, the silence can also symbolize that something wrong

is going to happen and sometimes it can be considered worse than a noise as

Pompey expresses, "It was the silence that was unnerving." (Bainbridge, 1998,

p. 210)96 However, we would have to be very thoughtful readers to be sure that

something is going to happen to George Hardy, even though his chance to

survive has not been mentioned.

In terms of ideal and actual, Myrtle’s life represents the ever-frustrated quest

for the ideal as the attempt to escape the actual. Her ideal embodies in the

desire to be close to George every time. In this plate, she does not hesitate to

find him, although Pompey tells her. "´I doubt you´ll ever find him.´... ´He´s

probably dead by now.´" (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 205)97 But she can feel that he is

not dead, even he is not with her. Ironically, when they walk together to reach

the hospital table she doesn’t feel that Georgie is in danger and what is even

more ironic is the fact that it is Myrtle who calls out his name and according to

this he stops and turns around and then gets killed.

We have mentioned earlier, that the novels written by Beryl Bainbridge

move from loss to total loss, according to the principle of the frustrations of

expectations and this is particularly obvious in the case of this character. At first,

Myrtle looses the contact with George’s children to whom she gave birth and at

the end, she has to face the total loss for her, because Master Georgie dies.

"Behind, on the brow of the hill I saw Myrtle, arms stretched wide, circling round

and round, like a bird above a robbed nest." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 212)98

According to the frustrations of expectations, we come across an accidental

death of a young drummer boy throughout this plate. The first ironic contrast lies

in the fact that he doesn’t offers his services as drummer boy anymore, but

helps in the trenches, because there is so many wounded people and not

enough ´doctors´. Furthermore, we probably remember that the favourite song 96 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 97 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 98 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

of old Mr. Hardy called ´Mother dear, I am fading fast´ is about the drummer boy

who dies during the war.

How ironic can be the situation when the lines from the song can reflect reality.

Considering the fact that nothing could be done for him, they use chloroform to

help him to depart from this world. In contrast, the chloroform smells fruity, "...

a touch like strawberries, which is pleasant since we all stink, Potter more than

most." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 189)99 In addition, if we consider that the face of

the boy smoothes out, it can only underline the idea that only death can bring

about the real transcension.

Moreover, there is an accidental death of one soldier that is an excellent

example of irony of fate. Some year ago, he lost his memory because he had

been defending the honour of his mother and got fisticuff from another young

boy. He could not remember his name until the iron fragment had sliced off his

ear during the war. "´I am Harry St Claire,´ he had called out, and now repeated

the information, adding, ´I am the happiest man alive.´" (Bainbridge, 1998, p.

193)100 After this, he shakes the hands of other people and repeats his name

over and over with the blood from his ear flying in all directions. Ironically, when

he hears the clapping of guns, he drops dead. According to George, "... it was

due to exhaustion, that and blood loss." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 193)101 Although,

it is very ironic that the man is alive and suddenly dies, we can also think that he

was at least happy even if only for a little while.

As we have already mentioned, this novel is based on historical events and

therefore some of the irony of the novel Master Georgie can only work relative

to the reader’s knowledge of Crimean War and subsequent historical events.

Although the allied forces do win this war, there is a huge amount of dead

soldiers behind their military operations. The generals on both sides are

unexperienced and this incompetence of the military leaders reflects the

helplessness of people, because they create so much unnecessary suffering

99 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 100 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 101 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

during the war. What happens to people is so frighteningly random and

meaningless that chance seems all that matters. When Pompey Jones is in

the heat of the Battle of Inkerman he thinks very concisely: "I didn´t know what

cause I was promoting, or why it was imperative to kill..." (Bainbridge, 1998, p.

208)102 Similarly, when he defends the regimental colours, he deduces. "In my

head I questioned the necessity of coming to the aid of a tattered square of silk,

but did as I was bid. I’d turned into a circus animal and would have jumped

through hoops if called upon." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 209)103

On the one hand, the officers want to report about the war to England and on

the other hand, they fail to realize that this can do them harm, because people

will now everything what happened.

Particularly, we mean the fact that they do not care about the soldiers, their

clothes, supplies, medical care, logistics etc. "We toiled in an easterly direction

towards a spur of rock encircled by a wall some ten foot high, erected from

stones and fortified by burst sandbags. It had been fashioned in the hopes of

trundling up heavy artillery, but was in fact empty." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 207)104

Ironically, the hopes break down very fast. Moreover, Pompey ironically adds to

it. "Quite why it was deemed necessary to defend such a nothing place was

never explained." (Bainbridge, 1998, p. 207)105

In contrast, the pure Russians are even worse off. If the soldiers want to use

the rifle, the military officers consider it to be misbehaviour so they have to use

a dagger.

To sum up, in the course of events throughout this plate we mainly find out

the irony from the point of view how it is written. Firstly, there is the ironic

tension between the textual control and characters´ lack of control over the

reality in the fictional world. Secondly, we can notice the ironic quality of

102 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 103 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 104 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie 105 Bainbridge, B. 1998. Master Georgie

presentation that deals with the quality of the scene. Particularly, we mean the

contrast between silence and sounds. Besides other ironic contrasts within the

content, there is also an example of irony of fate.

Considering the facts we have mentioned so far, we can really say that the

disperancy between the ideal and the actual is the propelling force behind the

course of events in the novel Master Georgie and leads to disaster. Particularly,

we can notice that George wants to offer his medical services in this war and

becomes a kind of butcher, later fusilier and at the end; he pays the highest

price when he dies. Myrtle wants to be with George and she looses him.

Pompey wants to be a photographer and he becomes a killer and ends as a

photographer’s assistant again. Dr. Potter in his ideal journey to be an observer

of the country only dreams of his wife and at the end even tears the pages from

his lovely books that means he looses his illusions about education after he

experiences the war.

Overall, every of the characters have its own desire, which seems to be ideal,

but the actuality is ironically different.

However, in the novel Master Georgie there is less of the historical than in

the previous novels written by Beryl Bainbridge, we can say it is all right,

because the author still imparts a sense of time and place smartly.

CONCLUSION

Although, the author Beryl Bainbridge has written seventeen novels, two

travel books and five plays for stage and television, so far, there are only a few

books that have been written about her style of writing. Even though it is like

that, this thesis confirms that she really falls among the best contemporary

postmodernist authors.

In this work, irony in the novel Master Georgie has been analysed. The

analysis confirms the suggestions assumed in the introduction and shows that

Beryl Bainbridge uses the irony that concerns about the disperancy between the

ideal and the real, and therefore it is really the propelling force behind the

course of events in this novel, which are represented through the use of irony.

Furthermore, we have also concentrated on different ironic contrasts, for

instance, the opposition between culture and nature, life and death, love and

war, present and past, old and new etc. In terms of narrative arrangement of

knowledge, there is also the disperancy between the cognitive dimension of the

fictional world and that of the reader and therefore it leads to the ironic effect.

We have also pointed out that even if the world seems to be chaotic, the text

seems controlled, which is the striking signal of the ironic tension. Further, we

have found out, that the examination of the text as communication exposes an

ironic quality of presentation that is highly manipulative.

As we have mentioned earlier, the disperancy between the ideal and the

actual is also pointed to human potentials and values. Considering this, we

have come to realize that the novel Master Georgie does not only reflect the

tragedy and ironies of life, but it also clearly speaks of the nature of being

human and its possibilities. Moreover, we have noticed that the shortcomings of

human beings and cultures also work in more complicated ways which make

the reader to realize the complexity of perceptions of reality.

Through the use of narrators as cameras and through the use of

photographs which both become realities in their own right and they also tend to

represent the history, no matter what truth they seem to reveal, we have come

to resolution, that this novel exposes the illusion of tragedy in the focus on the

unreasoning foundation of life. Furthermore, it also exposes the illusion of the

possibility of individual fulfilment of romance by doublestriking the need for joint

values. Therefore, the world is presented as a myth of perfection as illusion and

we can say that the novel Master Georgie ironically moves from the area of

realism towards this illusory world.

Like the writers in countries all over the world, the writer Beryl Bainbridge

uses the novel to give insight into the people’s action, ideas and aspirations and

therefore she has the power to represent the human experience both on the

individual and social level. We have to point out that Beryl Bainbridge is able to

add irony that one being the crucial element in postmodern texts, because it

undermines, claims and unmasks appearances only due to postmodernism.

Considering the fact, that the novel Master Georgie is a historical one, we

have had a chance to revisit the past with a sense of irony through

postmodernism.

RESUMÉ

Témou tejto diplomovej práce je irónia v diele „Master Georgie“ britskej

spisovateľky Beryl Bainbridge. Jej hlavnou časťou je analýza tohto románu

z hľadiska irónie. Tento historický román bol vybraný vzhľadom na to, že irónia

je jedným z kľúčových prvkov postmoderného textu. Vychádzajúc z analýz

predchádzajúcich diel tejto autorky, ktoré rozobrala švédska kritička Elizabeth

Wennı, poukazujeme na to, že „ironická formula“ a charakteristické črty jej

predošlých diel plnia rovnakú funkciu aj v tomto historickom románe. Britská

autorka Beryl Bainbridge v každom zo svojich diel využíva charakteristickú

vlastnosť irónie, ktorá stavia do juxtapozície ideálne a aktuálne. Aj v tomto diele

uvedená vlastnosť predstavuje „okamihový vplyv“ na pozadí diania, dôsledkom

ktorého je nešťastie hlavných postáv. Súčasne poukazuje aj na ľudské

možnosti a hodnoty, čo znamená, že dielo nielen zobrazuje tragédiu a iróniu

života, ale takisto jednoznačne hovorí o povahe ľudského bytia a jeho

možnostiach.

Beryl Bainbridge patrí k populárnym predstaviteľkám súčasnej Anglickej

literatúry. Hoci jej diela čitatelia často nevyhľadávajú, v kruhu priaznivcov

experimentálnej, ako aj tradičnej prózy má svojich obdivovateľov. Narodila sa

21. novembra 1934 v Liverpoole. Od svojich šestnástich rokov pôsobila ako

herečka v rôznych divadlách, jedným z nich bolo Repertory Theatre

v Liverpoole. Autorkiným debutom sa stal v roku 1967 román Weekend with

Claud, hoci jej prvým dielom bola novela Harriet Said, ktorá bola publikovaná až

v roku 1972. Spisovateľka sa nevenuje len beletrii, ale je aj autorkou dvoch

cestopisov a piatich divadelných hier. Štyrikrát bola nominovaná na cenu

Booker Prize a trikrát jej bola udelená literárna cena Whitebread Prize.

V poslednej dobe sa Beryl Bainbridge venuje písaniu historických románov.

Opísala napríklad potopenie Titaniku v diele Every man for Himself (1996),

expedíciu kapitána Scotta na južný pól v novele The Birthday Boys (1991).

Jej posledným románom je dielo According to Queeney (2001), v ktorom mladá

rozprávačka komentuje historické udalosti. Jej tvorba sa zaraďuje do

postmoderny, autorka je známa tvorbou experimentálnych románov, v ktorých

často konfrontuje fikciu so skutočnosťou a mytológiu s históriou. Vo svojej

tvorbe autorka psychologicky a veľmi bystro zobrazuje život nižšej strednej

vrstvy. Niekoľko jej románov sa odohráva v rodnom Liverpoole a prvé dve

kapitoly románu „Master Georgie“ tiež nie sú výnimkou. Beryl Bainbridge píše

na základe svojich vlastných skúseností a je veľmi dobrou pozorovateľkou

ľudskej pochabosti a sebaklamu. Pri písaní svojich románov používa zábavnú

interpretáciu. Čitatelia jej noviel musia byť veľmi pozorní, pretože to, čo sa im

môže zdať na pohľad nedôležité, alebo nevypovedané, je často rovnako

dôležité ako to, čo je zrejmé. Veľmi dôležitá je aj schopnosť čitateľa vnímať

iróniu, ktorá je významným prvkom v románoch tejto autorky.

Prvá podkapitola teoretickej časti sa zaoberá vplyvom postmodernizmu na

spoločenskú situáciu. Tento smer sa objavuje v mnohých vedných disciplínach

a oblastiach štúdia, vrátane umenia, architektúry, filmu, hudby, literatúry,

sociológie, filozofie, technológie a životného štýlu. Vznikol ako reakcia na

filozofické princípy, o ktoré sa opiera moderná kultúra. Od roku 1979 má termín

postmodernizmus svoje miesto vo filozofickom slovníku, kde bol zaradený na

základe vydania diela "The Postmodern Condition" napísaného filozofom Jean-

Francoisom Lyotardom. Postmodernizmus ako kultúrny smer je aspektom

postmoderny. Zatiaľ čo moderna sa opiera o stanovené myšlienky,

postmoderna odkazuje na podmienky v spoločnosti. To znamená, že v tomto

období ideológie, globálne koncepcie a myšlienkové sústavy stratili svoju

legitimitu a pre ľudstvo už neexistuje univerzálny cieľ, ktorý bol prezentovaný

napríklad osvietenstvom. Spôsob, akým ľudia žijú sa mení, týka sa to hlavne

zmien v organizácii životného štýlu, ale aj zmien v zmysle chápania reality, a

pod. a to nielen smerom k rodine, spoločenstvu, ale aj k sebe samému.

Pod vplyvom technologického a ekonomického vývoja spoločnosti, dochádza

k decentralizácii. Ľudia trávia čas odlúčení od spoločnosti, vedú konzumný život,

miešajú štýly, túžia vyzerať mladšie a krajšie, a pod. V súvislosti

s technologickým vývojom, významnú úlohu zohrávajú počítače a internet, ktoré

umožňujú okamžitý príjem informácií z celého sveta. Tieto sú však veľmi

konkurenčné a preto je ťažké ľudí zaujať a tak je vnímavosť ľudí znížená.

Medzi znaky tohto kultúrneho fenoménu patrí aj stieranie rozdielov medzi

originálom a kópiou, čiže medzi niečím hodnotným a napodobeninou,

autentickým a fikciou, ďalej vzniká tvorba artefaktu „simulakra“- ktorý vznikol

vplyvom reality na umenie. Podľa Baudrillarda, „simulakra“ vytvára obraz, ktorý

realitu maskuje, deformuje jej zmysel a na základe toho signalizuje absenciu

reality a robí ju nadbytočnou. V živote tento artefakt vnímame najmä

prostredníctvom elektronickej simulácie, virtuálnej reality, cyberspaceom

a cyberkultúrou. Postmoderný životný štýl sa vyznačuje hyperaktivitou,

netrpezlivosťou, fragmentarizovanosťou, a pod. Sťažené sú aj možnosti ľudí

dospieť k istotám, hoci na druhej strane, ľudia pestujú alternatívne životné štýly.

Postmodernú situáciu môžeme vnímať a chápať rôzne. Pre niektorých môže

reprezentovať slobodu vzhľadom k minulosti, iní si môžu myslieť, že tento

sociálny fenomén vedie len k chaosu. Závisí však od človeka, akým smerom sa

vydá a aký cieľ si zvolí. Treba však podotknúť, že postmodernizmus najmä

popiera existenciu akýchkoľvek konečných princípov.

V druhej podkapitole teoretickej časti sme sa zaoberali vplyvom

postmodernizmu na literatúru. Postmodernizmus ako literárny a umelecký smer

vznikol na základe štýlov a myšlienok, ktoré sa objavili počas Druhej svetovej

vojny a reagovali na štandardy modernej literatúry. Moderná aj postmoderná

literatúra reprezentuje zlom od realizmu devätnásteho storočia, čo znamená, že

postmoderná literatúra nie je protikladom modernej, ale reprezentuje určitú

zmenu. V porovnaní s realizmom, kde je základom románu skutočný príbeh,

postmoderná literatúra vytvára ilúziu formy a obsahu, ktoré už nereprezentujú

skutočný obraz reality.

V postmodernej literatúre je realita vytváraná aktivitou individuálnych

postáv. Ďalej umožňuje preskupenie a prelínanie rozličných žánrov.

„Vyššia“ literatúra tak môže preniknúť do sfér fantázie, surrealistickej alegórie

a magického realizmu. Medzi významných predstaviteľov postmodernej

literatúry patria; John Fowles, Angela Carter, Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco,

Günter Grass, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Vladimir Nabokov a mnoho ďalších.

John Fowles si napríklad myslí, že aj keď postmoderná literatúra obsahuje ilúziu,

manipuláciu a nové formálne prostriedky a metódy, stále môže zobrazovať

reálny život jednotlivca v súčasnej spoločnosti. Postmoderná literatúra ako aj tá

moderná je preniknutá subjektivizmom. To znamená, že sa odvracia od

vonkajšej reality s cieľom skúmať vnútorný stav vedomia. Pre postmoderný text

je príznačná prítomnosť viacerých hľadísk, pohľadov, zorných uhlov a

perspektív. Experimentuje s úlohou rozprávača, jazykom, časom a pohľadom

na realitu. Postmodernizmus podporuje fragmentáciu a nesúvislosť,

fragmentovaná je realita aj čas. Postmoderný spisovatelia preferujú rôzne

spôsoby štrukturalizácie rozprávania. Medzi nimi nájdeme mnohonásobný

koniec, čo môžeme vidieť napríklad v diele Johna Fowlesa Milenka

francúzskeho poručíka (1969), kde autor ponúka viacero záverov príbehu.

Ďalším spôsobom ako dosiahnuť tento efekt je rozdelenie textu do krátkych

fragmentov, alebo častí, ktoré sú oddelené medzerami, číslami alebo symbolmi.

Mnoho súčasných spisovateľov využíva vo svojej tvorbe aj prvky populárnych

žánrov, ako sú thriller, historický, romantický či detektívny román, a pod. V

súvislosti s historickým románom, postmoderná beletria nielen narúša minulosť,

ale aj prítomnosť. To znamená, že nastáva kombinácia historického a

neskutočného materiálu. Medzi hlavné znaky postmoderného románu patrí aj

konfrontácia fikcie so skutočnosťou a mytológie s históriou. Jedným z takýchto

druhov písania je “metafikcia”, ktorá podporuje fantáziu a využíva paródiu,

iróniu, humorný štýl písania a je seba odzrkadľujúca. Čitatelia môžu mať súcit s

postavami, čo je typické pre realistický román, ale ich môžu posudzovať aj

z ironického hľadiska.

Na záver je dôležité pripomenúť, že postmoderné literárne diela sú určené

takými literárnymi prvkami, ako je paródia, destabilizácia spoločenských noriem

a najmä irónia, ktorá je kľúčovým prvkom postmoderného textu.

V angličtine sa termín irónia objavil v šestnástom storočí. Vo všeobecnosti

sa používa, keď chceme slovne vyjadriť vonkajší aj podstatný význam, ktorý je

odlišný. Irónia naznačuje, že zdanie vecí sa líši od reality, či už sa to týka

významu, činnosti, alebo situácie a objavuje sa v rôznych formách. Medzi

formami irónie nájdeme napríklad verbálnu, neverbálnu, dramatickú,

štrukturálnu, situačnú, rétorickú, Sokratickú, filozofickú, romantickú, kozmickú,

tragickú a iróniu osudu. Irónia predstavuje aj spôsob, akým sa môžeme

dualisticky pozerať na človeka ako na zmes telesného inštinktu a rozumového

intelektu. Obsahuje tiež možnosť vidieť veci z rôznych pohľadov, čiže také, aké

sú a aké by mali byť. Použitie irónie je mnohonásobné, či už v reči alebo kultúre.

Ako prvý prišiel s myšlienkou absentujúceho autora v osemnástom storočí

Shakespeare. Pre predstaviteľov romantizmu bola priepasť medzi slovami a

svetom veľmi originálna. Títo argumentovali, že keby sme sa snažili vidieť celú

reč ironicky, život by už nebol znížený na to, čo je “hovoriteľné”.

Hoci sa irónia prevažne zaujíma o reč, môžeme ju použiť aj obrazne.

Takýmto druhom irónie je irónia osudu. Týka sa situácií, ktoré sa nečakane stali

a nedajú sa dostatočne vysvetliť prirodzenou cestou. Iróniu si môžeme často

popliesť so sarkazmom a satirou. Sarkazmus predstavuje najvyššiu formu trpkej

irónie a je silnejší ako samotná irónia. Používa cynický tón a predstavuje túžbu

niekomu ublížiť. Ďalším významom irónie je satira, ktorá spočíva v odhalení

hlúposti jednotlivca, skupiny, myšlienky, a pod. Satiristi využívajú iróniu veľmi

často. Pokiaľ hovoríme o irónii ako triumfe postmodernizmu, potom nemôžeme

vynechať nostalgický rozmer postmoderného. Kanadská kritička Linda

Hutcheon tvrdí, že by sme nemali ignorovať skutočnú tenziu medzi

postmodernou iróniou a nostalgiou, pretože sú základnými prvkami súčasnej

kultúry.

Nostalgia sa viac zaujíma o prítomnosť ako o minulosť, pričom zobrazovanú

minulosť približuje. Zároveň predstavuje to, čo cítime, keď sa minulosť stretne s

prítomnosťou, čo je často sprevádzané značnými emóciami. Používanie irónie v

umení a literatúre neustále narastá. Irónia sa stáva znakom dobrého vkusu

nielen v literatúre a dráme, ale aj v bežnom živote. V postmodernizme irónia

stiera rozdiel medzi ideálnym a skutočným, medzi “vyššou” a “nízkou” kultúrou.

Postmodernizmus môžeme chápať ako stanovisko, ktoré je do značnej miery

ironické.

V praktickej časti tejto práce je rozoberaný román „Master Georgie“

z hľadiska irónie. Hoci sa príbeh odohráva počas Krymskej vojny, obrazom tejto

knihy nie je samotná vojna, ale skupina ľudí, ktorých životy sú jej ohniskom.

Hlavnou postavou je George Hardy, ktorý ponúkne svoje služby ako lekár

v Krymskej vojne. Medzi jeho nasledovníkmi je jeho nevlastná sestra Myrtle,

ktorá je do neho veľmi zaľúbená. Ďalším je mladý hltač ohňov Pompey Jones,

Georgov asistent pri fotografovaní a jeho občasný milenec a tretím je intelektuál

a geológ, Dr. Potter, ktorý je Georgovým švagrom. George, Myrtle a Pompey sú

prepojení desivým tajomstvom, a to nešťastnou smrťou Georgovho otca

v jednom z Liverpoolských verejných domov. Dr. Potterovi to neskôr povie sám

George, hoci jeho švagor už aj tak predtým niečo tušil. Poháňaní túžbou po

niečom ideálnom sa všetci ocitnú vo vojne, kde však musia čeliť smrti

a chorobám. Tento „výlet“ sa však končí tragicky, pretože Georga zastrelí

jeden z ruských vojakov.

Dielo je formálne rozdelené do šiestich kapitol. Každá z týchto kapitol

reprezentuje samostatnú fotografickú dosku, čierno – biely obraz, ktorý je

pomenovaný na základe fotografie, ktorá bola vyhotovená v priebehu udalostí

jednotlivej kapitoly. Organizácia diela okolo týchto šiestich fotografických

obrazov je pravdepodobne založená na skutočnosti, že Krymská vojna bola

prvá, počas ktorej sa fotografovalo.

Fotografie vo všeobecnosti zachytávajú okamih. Otázka znie, či nám hovoria

pravdu. V skutočnosti, určitý okamih môže byť viac menej pravdou. Podľa Beryl

Bainbridge však fotografia predstavuje taký podvod, ako nič iné.

Fotografia má vlastnosť vytvorenia mýtu a v tomto diele je odhalenie mýtu

dokonalosti, ktorý je prezentovaný ako ilúzia nutné, takisto ako odhalenie

skutočnej pravdy, ktorá je prezentovaná ako nedokonalosť. Dielo „Master

Georgie“ sa ironicky presúva z oblasti realizmu smerom k tomuto iluzórnemu

svetu.

Okrem mnohých ironických kontrastov, medzi ktorými napríklad kontrast

medzi láskou ako jednotou a láskou ako klamstvom, prirodzenosťou a kultúrou,

starým a novým, prítomnosťou a minulosťou, hororom a krásou, mierom

a vojnou, láskou a vojnou, životom a smrťou, ženským a mužským výzorom

a postavením, a pod, je v diele obsiahnutý aj ironický efekt, ako výsledok

„disperancie“ medzi poznávacím rozmerom sveta fikcie a sveta rozprávača.

Ironické napätie je prezentované rozdielom medzi textom, ktorý sa zdá byť

kontrolovaný a svetom fikcie, ktorý sa zdá byť chaotický. Skúmanie textu ako

komunikácie odhaľuje ironickú kvalitu prezentácie, ktorá je vysoko manipulujúca.

Vzhľadom na predchádzajúce, „disperancia“ medzi ideálnym a aktuálnym

naozaj vedie k nešťastiu hlavných postáv. Je to zrejmé, ak zvážime túžby, teda

to, čo predstavuje pre postavy v tomto románe ideálno, a výsledky, ktoré sú

obrazom aktuálneho. Hlavná postava George ponúka svoje lekárske služby

v Krymskej vojne a stáva sa z neho mäsiar, pretože jediné operácie, ktorá robí

sú amputácie. Neskôr už nie je lekár, ale strelec a nakoniec zaplatí najvyššiu

daň svojím vlastným životom. Jedinú vec, ktorú kedy Myrtle chcela, je byť

s Georgom alebo mu byť aspoň nablízku, ale jeho smrťou ho stráca. Mladý muž

Pompey sa túžil stať fotografom, ale počas vojny sa stáva zabijakom a končí

znovu ako asistent fotografa. Georgov švagor Dr. Potter, ktorý šiel do vojny

s úmyslom pozorovať krajinu, najprv túži po svojich dňoch starého mládenca

a potom sníva iba o svojej žene. Nakoniec, ako veľký milovník kníh a vzdelania,

trhaním strán z nich stráca všetky svoje ilúzie o vzdelaní.

Dochádzame tak k záveru, že román „Master Georgie“ sa ironicky posúva

z oblasti realizmu smerom k iluzórnemu svetu, pretože tento svet je

zobrazovaný ako mýtus dokonalosti.

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