The Greeks were not spared from De Bernieres’ satirical rendition of all nations in his novel. The communist Greeks were depicted as carrying a “totalitarian elements ingrained in their ideology, irrespective of whether all those partisans were swept by the passions that cultivate illiberal regimes, poverty, and oppression” as the critic Nafsika Papanikolatos has stated. This can be viewed in characters such as Hector and Mandras. Of course this was not a fair representation of anyone who belongs to that nationality as other Greeks such as Dr.Iannis shows to hold contrasting views to Mandras and ELAS. Instead of violence, Dr Iannis uses intelligence as a symbol of his superiority. From the very beginning of the book he is seen using medical terminology and attempts to write the history of Cephallonia. Dr Iannis’ kind and nurturing character was highlighted in the chapter ‘A Funny Kind of Cat’ where he saves a Pine Marten despite being sceptical at first. Lemoni regards the doctor as “the man to whom she had entrusted its [Psipsina’s] salvation”, it becomes evident the true nature of Iannis a as helpful and good hearted person, a complete opposite to Mandras. However, it is not until the chapters ‘1953’ and ‘Pelagia’s Lament’ that Dr Iannis’ heroic attributes come into light as he yells to Pelagia and Drosoula “Get Out!...It’s an earthquake! Save yourselves!”, breaking his silence of eight years. An air of integrity is attributed to Iannis for this display of courage. ‘Pelagia’s Lament’ accentuates Iannis’ heroic credentials and loving nature when Pelagia described him as “the only man I’ve loved who loved me to the end, and never bruised my heart, and never for a single moment failed me.” Throughout the novel, he is represented variously as an adviser to others, capable of careful judgement and assured knowledge. The character Dr Iannis evokes and commands respect not only from his fellow villagers but also from the readers. This is a stark contrast to what the critic Imogen Tilden had stated and that De Bernieres ‘portrayed [the Greeks resistence fighters] as rapists, torturers and cowards’.
Due to Nazism, stigma was attached to the Germans as being ‘dour and violent’. They were described as ‘serious, did not understand irony, took polite offence, and were coldly and brutally efficient’. At first glance, readers would come to see Gunter Weber in the same light as other German soldiers, blinded by political ideology and took offence when Corelli suggested that he was not a German. However, in the ‘Good Nazi (2)’ Weber was shown by De Bernieres to have a conscience when he protested against the killing of war prisoners and his friends. Even though Weber chose the political agenda over the personal and watched his ‘former friends, wheeling and dancing, in the horizontal rain’, he spared Corelli’s life and lets him live. This act of kindness is contradictory to that of the Germans at the time where ‘the islanders remember the Germans were not human beings’. Consumed with guilt, Gunter Weber later on left Corelli’s mandolin and his gramophone outside Pelagia’s home as he had promised. The fact that Weber had any conscience at all shows that he was not a typical Nazi that ‘killed perhaps four thousand Italian boys’.
No nations were particularly under attack in the novel as no country escapes De Bernieres’ humorous satire. Even the Albanians with little role in the novel are depicted as ‘murderous, lecherous, rapacious, and incapable of work or honesty’. However, through the explorations of key individuals, De Bernieres is showing that no particular nation is entirely guilt-free or held accountable for the onset of war. Rather, as the critic Nafsika Papanikolatas has stated ‘the same book can be read as an anti-war epic’, it is an attack on war more than anything else.
One of the ways De Bernieres put forward the detrimental effects of war is through the physical degradation of Mandras. Literary Review’s Andrew Post commented on De Bernieres style of writing with ‘horrifying, graphic physicality of the suffering of war, of the effects of starvation and cold, of atrocities and betrayals’. Mandras, much like Odysseus from Homer’s Odyssey had very high expectations of military life and believed ‘no man is a man until he has been a soldier’. However, when Mandras returned after the war he was beyond recognition. De Bernieres uses horrid images and graphic description of Mandras’ post-war physique as ‘caked with old, congealed blood’ and ‘reek of rotting flesh’. The author goes out of his way to ensure his readers can imagine the true result of war on a man through Mandras’ transformation who was previously compared to Adonis, a Greek god that alludes youth and attractiveness, into a monster. Before he went to war, through Pelagia’s narrative, she was ‘transfixed by his [Mandras] beauty’ which highlights that their love was of physical nature and nothing more. De Bernieres deliberately put a stark contrast of Mandras’ physical being before and after the war to demonstrate to his reader the severe repercussions of war in the physical sense.
What Mandras had to endure physically manifests itself mentally. Mandras, initially depicted as the archetypical Greek male who is loveable and innocent, has suddenly turned into an insufferable and violent character upon his dramatic return from fighting. Through the chapter of ‘Mandras behind the veil’ De Bernieres takes a post modernist approach and used a first person narrative to describe the hardship of war. A personal account maintains a certain degree of realism and only puts forth powerful images. Mandras recollects his journey back to Pelagia and reflects on the hardship he endured. This brings back to Homer’s Odyssey where his protagonist Odysseus had suffered through periods of madness during his voyage back home to his wife after his revival in Ithaca only to find himself in the shedding of blood of hundreds of suitors. Mandras suffered through a prolonged series of hallucinations which reveal the extent of his mental degradation. The critic David Horspool believed that ‘De Bernieres sees that war can either degrade or elevate human beings’. It is clear that in Mandras’ case that it brought out his faults rather than his merits. This is shown in the novel when he ‘hope[s] there’s going to be a war’ which only highlights his naivety. He viewed war as ‘something great… something to be esteemed’, to self glorify as depicted in Homer’s Odyssey. Mandras was bitter because he felt intellectually inferior to Dr. Iannis in which he thought he could compensate through fighting a war. In the chapter ‘Liberating the Masses (I)’ readers could see that Mandras was put under pressure by Hector, leader of ELAS to beat an emaciated old man. This gruesome scene portrayed Mandras as a heartless, evil man, a complete contrast to his character prior to the war. Indoctrinated with communist ideologies and propaganda of war, Mandras sees no wrong in beating and killing his own people; a reflex he ‘required in three years of omnipotence and accountability’, undoubtedly during the period of war. Nicci Gerrard believes that here “De Bernières explores power and its abuse”. During his time with ELAS Mandras has seen Hector abuse his powers which only led him to believe it was a natural right. It is revealed to the readers that war has dehumanised Mandras and portray him to be animalistic. This was brought to a climax when he tried to rape Pelagia where Mandras felt ‘violence and animality was infinitely more exhilarating’. One would be inclined to believe that war had turned him into a barbaric creature. De Bernieres uses this opportunity to show the damage that can be done by extreme politics. The corruption of Mandras is symbolic of the corrupting power of war on individuals.
De Bernieres was clearly seen criticising war through the narrative of a compassionate yet isolated character that is Carlo Piero Guercio. In the chapters of ‘L’Omosessuale’, Carlo is seen giving his personal account of his sufferings and loss during wartime. De Bernieres deliberately employs a first person narrative to make the war images powerful and vivid to manipulate the imagination of the readers. Although Carlo and Mandras fought on opposite fronts, De Bernieres applied the same style of narration to both characters to show to readers that one had suffer in the same way as the other. But unlike Mandras, Carlo did not go to battle for glory or honour. He was merely looking for acceptance due to his homosexuality. He wanted to ‘find someone to love, and… be ennobled by this love’. It was soon clear to Carlo that war only brings demise and misery to human beings. Through this character, De Bernieres puts forward his opinion on war and its barbarism. During the course of war, Carlo describes himself as ‘an automaton without emotion or hope’ as a result of war. He also criticises the poor leadership of local commands and question the true purpose for the war, ‘we fight them for reasons unclear and without honour’. This shows that war is often fought for arbitrary reasons to futile outcomes. In the chapter ‘L’Omosessuale (6)’ De Bernieres applies a unique way of showing the true nature of war. Carlo responds to Francesco’s mother with answers that she wanted to hear but at the end of each response, De Bernieres counter it with the reality that only the readers can know about. This reels in the readers to make them see the true horror Francesco and Carlo had to endure. The idea that war brings physical harm was further emphasized through Carlo and Francesco’s suffering. Through Carlo’s narration, he observes that Francesco is ‘undoubtedly mad’ and ‘shits himself deliberately’, much like Mandras. By repeating these vivid descriptions, De Bernieres is evoking strong mental images in his readers mind to remind and reemphasise the grim and unnatural effects of war on a man’s body and mind.
However, an important distinction is to be made between Mandras and Carlo’s war experiences. Unlike the former, war had levitated Carlo in terms of morals and character. Throughout his time in the Julia Division, Carlo’s main concerns always lie therein of Francesco’s well-being; ‘if I had any worry at all is that Francesco was becoming stranger’. His act of kindness was further seen in his counter with Francesco’s family when he tells white lies instead of the ugly truth to spare them additional grief. He tells them that “he died very quickly of a bullet through the heart”, that “he died with a smile on his lips” when he actually took two hours to die. The contrast of events of Francesco’s actual death and the glorious version Carlo made up only puts emphasis on the horrors of war. Perhaps Carlo’s true act of kindness is his very last one when Corelli ‘had found in front of him the titanic bulk of Carlo Guercio… as one bullet after another burrowed like white hot parasitic knives into the muscle of his chest’. Here he shows true bravery and courage that is in stark contrast to Mandras after the war. Here it is apparent that the character Carlo strays away from the features of an Italian soldier as stated in World Socialist Website to be ‘thugs, thieves and lazy cowards who refused to defend the Italian soldiers fighting the Nazis’. Arguably, De Bernieres is stating that war can have the same destructive and damaging effect on everyone and that it brings out the true nature of humans.
De Bernieres attacks the barbarism of war effectively through the detailed and vivid images he utilizes in a first person narrative. He also uses contrasting views of war by putting forward the preconceived idea and the actuality of it to make an impact and show the readers how different the reality is from what they might think war is like. A good example of this is how Carlo is seen to be romanticizing war in the beginning before experiencing any suffering when he talks about no civilian being able to “comprehend the joy of being a soldier” and “how wonderful it was to be at this war”. Progressively into the ‘L’Omosessuale’ chapters, we can see him talk about war in a negative light. Carlo also talks about how nature intervened in the midst of battle “…until the weather turned against us.” And “Francesco and I were saved by the weather.” This interference from fate shows that war is arbitrary as much as it is unnatural. He knows that the real tragedy of war is death, “War is wonderful until someone is killed” and realises that “War is a wonderful thing, in movies and in books”. Here De Bernieres is putting forward the idea that this idealised version of war is fictitious and can only be seen in movie and in books. The same can be said about Mandras. His reason for going to war was to prove to Pelagia and villagers of Cephallonia that he is a hero like Odysseus. However, war did not elevate him but rather brought out the monster in him. Driven by his extreme political beliefs, Mandras returns as a violent and sadistic character. By contrasting powerfully the preconceived notions and the true nature of war, De Bernieres highlights that the typical view of war which is glorified and romanticized by films and literature, even in Greek mythology, cannot be far remove from the actual truth.
To see ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ as a novel that attacks on other nation and to overlook the devastating effects of war and occupation to the inhabitants of Cephallonia is simply sacrilegious and an insult to De Bernieres’ work. He explores the human emotions and characterization in the presence of war. While some prevail and some falter under war circumstances, De Bernieres very much condemns the barbarism of war as summarised by Francesco eloquently, “I came into this war in a state of innocence and I leave it so utterly wearied that I am contented to die.”
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