Sorry for the late post, I was working on the paper last night and completely forgot about the blog.
In most novels characters can be classified as static or dynamic, round or flat. While this is applicable to some degree in Loving, it almost cannot be used as a description as so many of the characters were left with no ending at all. Kate, Miss Burch, Miss Welch, and Victoria all had plot lines that were completely cut off by the ending. We have no idea if Miss Burch or Nanny Swift recovered from their illnesses or if they died. We don't know what became of Kate and Paddy or Victoria and Captain Davenport. Even if you believe the "happily ever after ending" given to us for Edith and Raunce, the ending is unsatisfactory in a myriad of other ways. Victoria is no doubt up in arms about two of her primary servants running off without notice, and since she already suspected that there was a thief among them, she most likely assume Raunce and Edith were behind the missing ring. Which is not to say untrue, but would she not fear that by running away something even bigger had occurred? All of this is left unanswered. While it could be argued that the events surrounding the other servants and the Tennants were all centered around Raunce and Edith, so that their individual stories are not of great importance, this seems unsatisfactory. I personally was invested in the plot lines of the other characters, and having no resolution of any of them (including Raunce and Edith to some degree depending on your view of the ending) leaves me wondering what was Green trying to convey? Of course there is the overall contrast between the servants and the Tennants, but there were so many events that were regarded as important to the plot that were just discarded in the end. Did they serve an actual purpose besides moving the plot along? Was there any meaning or significance behind how they were conveyed? Or was Green simply providing an fairytale-like anecdote through which he describes time and action as ultimately meaningless? Although I like to think that this was not the case, by taking a knife and cutting the story off, he has left me wondering.
But isn't it just as false to "end" the story at nice static outcomes for the rest of the characters? Their lives aren't over, and even if we follow them to death, others around them live on (compare the case of Eldon). I mean, what is a suitable ending here? Green declares his goal is to write a story which is artificially alive, and this mean to me, among other things, presenting a world in the middle of things, mid-flight, moments which are never beginnings or endings.
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