“Everything Rumfoord did he did with style, making all mankind look good.
Everything Constant did he did in style - aggressively, loudly, childishly, wastefully”
This is a direct comparison with Rumfoord and shows how young, eager and naïve Constant is in contrast to Rumfoord who is much older and knows everything. The adverbs are all negative showing how Rumfoord is a good person but Constant takes everything for granted.
The story follows Constant and then Unk throughout the book giving only important facts such as what they look like and character points about the other people in the book to explain the interaction between them and Constant. This increases the reader’s sympathy because we learn a lot about Constant and how he has treated the other characters and how he has been treated in return.
The reader’s sympathy is drawn out more when we are shown he is not told very pleasant things and so we feel sorry for him. This is when he visits Winston Niles Rumfoord. Here Constant is told that he will be mated to Winston’s wife Beatrice who hates him and has no choice in the matter, and that he will not die on Earth.
“Constant, having just heard from Rumfoord that he was to be mated to Rumfoord’s wife on Mars, looked away … hand’s clasped together, tightening”
This quote shows how displeased Constant is by finding this out as he grips his hands together in anger we assume. After hearing this however, Constant does his best to be horrible to Beatrice which makes the reader very angry at him. “Malachi Constant had take to writing offensive letters to Beatrice … in order to make himself absolutely and permanently intolerable to her”
The reader feels sympathy for Constant when he gets to Mars and becomes Unk because he gets his memory wiped and an antenna put in his head which controls him and tells him what to do. This antenna also causes pain whenever he does something that he shouldn’t. This is so we know that even though murdering someone is wrong he has no choice. We don’t find out until later though that it is his friend and so when we do we feel even more sympathy. Unk is told that he must strangle someone because they have done something wrong. He is only following orders and so is being a good soldier by doing this. Unk does not know that this is his best friend. This makes the reader feel sorry for Unk which adds to the sympathy the reader feels. When Unk hesitates the antenna makes him feel excruciating pain. This is what makes us feel most sympathy for Unk
The reader feels sympathetic when Unk finds out he has a mate and child so when he gets the chance he runs away to find them and to convince them to escape with him to a better place. However, his child, Chrono, tells him that what he is saying is nonsense and that he doesn’t need him and his mate, Beatrice Rumfoord, almost lets him die. “Her diagnosis had been correct. He would keel over at any minute.” The language here is simple and informal making it sound almost childish which is how we are meant to perceive Beatrice here. This is also sympathy inducing because his family from childhood was been bad and now it is getting worse.
The reader feels sympathy instead of anger because of the emphasis on what happened before and how it changed him for worse afterwards When Unk recovers from his meeting with Beatrice and he is forced to talk with Winston again. Winston tells Unk a story about how a man is told repeatedly that a woman behind clothed doors is the most beautiful in the world and how she would turn anyone but the most professional soldiers ‘bad’. “The new Lieutenant-colonel was offended by the suggestion he was not a professional soldier” This appeals to his pride and so one day he gets drunk and finds the key to this women’s room and rapes her. The reader guesses correctly that this is Unk.
The reader also finds out that he tries to earn Beatrice’s forgiveness and love but each time he got close she had her memory wiped so she kept forgetting him which increases sympathy for Unk because it seems that something is against everything he tries to do to make things right.
“His problem, thereupon, became to win her love … This he attempted to do, not once but many times. He was consistently defeated. But it became the central problem of his life - probably because he himself came from a shattered family”
The language in this quote is simple and concise. The message is also very clear. This elicits the reader’s sympathy because it spells out how they are meant to feel and appeals to human sensitivity.
Another reason the reader feels sympathy for him is because He is forced to spend 3 years on Mercury with no one but an idealistic and egotistical young man who has never had his memory wiped and is slightly jealous of Unk. “He [Boaz] couldn’t forbear torturing Unk from time to time. For one thing, Unk had had everything back on Earth, and Boaz had nothing.” This makes the reader feel slightly sympathetic however also slightly angry because the young man lives in comfort and makes use of what is around him whilst Unk wanders around becoming thinner and weaker. This makes Unk seem like a martyr which makes the reader annoyed at him because we are shown that he has no need to be. “Unk had lost a lot of weight … He was aging fast. Boaz had never felt better in his life”
When he arrives on Earth he is greeted by a great procession which makes him out to be wonderful. This makes the reader happy because he is finally having something good in his life. “Men, women and children clung to the engine with expressions of ecstasy” However, when he gets to his destination he is taken onto a platform where everyone can see him and he is publicly humiliated by Rumfoord when he tells Unk that he murdered his best friend and that Unk was the person that everyone despises on Earth. This increases the reader’s sympathy a great deal because it is such a sudden contrast and Unk is really confused by what is going on.
On this platform Winston Rumfoord also sends Unk away from Earth to Titan where Unk has been told before when he was known as Constant that he will die there. “Your final destination is Titan” This makes the reader more sympathetic because of the dramatic irony and because the reader knows what will happen to Unk.
Malachi Constant is used in Winston Niles Rumfoord’s religion as the ‘bad person’ that all religions have. Unk is seen as a glorious person in the religion. When it is revealed that Unk is in fact Malachi Constant it becomes clear that Winston Rumfoord used Unk to become more glorious. This elicits the reader’s sympathy because no one would want to be used to fulfil someone else’s goal in life.
Unk’s mate, Beatrice, and his son, Chrono, are sent with Unk to Titan and when they get there Chrono goes mad. This causes the very strong bond between Chrono and Beatrice to be broken and Chrono goes to live with wild birds. Unk feels bad for having been the cause of this and does try his hardest to make up for everything. “He liked to show off his skills as a provider [to Beatrice]” This time, Beatrice and Unk do get closer however they are still no more than friends. This makes the reader happy for them but also slightly sympathetic to Unk because he is always feeling guilty and has still not really got a good chance to love someone or have a normal life.
Another reason the reader feels sympathy is when Unk does try and be a good father and make up with his son. When Unk finds his son’s ‘shrines’ on Titan he does tidy them up and make them look less neglected. “When Constant found one of his strange son’s shrines in a state of neglect, he would tidy it up” The reader feels sympathy here because we can see his is trying and fighting a losing battle.
On the whole we feel sympathy for Malachi Constant/Unk because of all the bad things that have happened and how that appeals to the reader’s feelings as every human feel sorry for a man who has been through so much in such a small amount of time.
Helen Young