Wise Children- Peregrine Hazard's Character
How does Angela Carter present the character of Peregrine throughout the novel?
Out of the many main characters of Angela Carter's 'Wise Children', Peregrine Hazard is perhaps the most intriguing. At a glance, Peregrine appears to be the most noble and moralistic of the Hazard family, being the only one to acknowledge the Chance sisters as part of this family, and more importantly, Peregrine is the closest thing the Chance sisters have to a real father, however it can be argued that in fact Peregrine is less moralistic and noble than he appears, abandoning his responsibility to the Chance children for months at a time and having various affairs throughout the novel. Angela Carter uses the character of Peregrine to illustrate the theme of fatherhood and father-daughter relationships in the novel.
Peregrine Hazard is Melchior Hazard's fraternal twin brother. Born on his parent's theatre tour and abandoned in America after Ranulph Hazards murder-suicide of his mother and her lover, possibly the biological father, Peregrine stays in America while Melchior is taken back to England with his aunt. What happened here is a mystery.
After Grandma Chance corners Melchior Hazard into acknowledging the Chance sisters as being his, Peregrine appears before the girls, explaining to Grandma Chance that he has agreed to legally acknowledge the girls as his. He sends them royalty checks and gifts, takes them out on trips and behaves as a father should behave before the Chance girls- he spoils them. Like a father he sticks up for them, for example, when the Chance twins see that Melchior is performing at a theatre, he takes them backstage to show them to their father. Unfortunately, Melchior takes to them coldly. Peregrine stands up for them "it's a wise child that knows its own father," hissed peregrine... "but wiser yet the father that knows his own child"'.
However, Peregrine soon gets bored of England and wants to travel again; leaving no means to communication he takes off, sending the cheques and gifts to them, but leaving them without a father figure.
Next he returns rich and joins them at a party held by Melchior in which a fire devastates the party, Peregrine escapes with Melchior's crown, which he uses to tease Melchior, and leaves for travel. Peregrine appears next in the novel when the twins leave for Hollywood to shoot 'The Dream' a re-telling of 'A midsummer night's dream'. He introduces them to ...
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However, Peregrine soon gets bored of England and wants to travel again; leaving no means to communication he takes off, sending the cheques and gifts to them, but leaving them without a father figure.
Next he returns rich and joins them at a party held by Melchior in which a fire devastates the party, Peregrine escapes with Melchior's crown, which he uses to tease Melchior, and leaves for travel. Peregrine appears next in the novel when the twins leave for Hollywood to shoot 'The Dream' a re-telling of 'A midsummer night's dream'. He introduces them to Melchior's second wife, Delia Delaney, wife of the producer, who he appears to be having an affair with.
The first time Dora mentions Peregrine, she is mourning for him because he 'vanished away as neatly and completely as one of those conjuring tricks you were so fond of.' While she says that 'At our age, Nora and I have got more friends among the dead than with the living', Peregrine is the only character she talks about in mourning. Throughout the novel, Dora almost never communicates feelings of remorse or sadness, and when she begins to talk about Peregrine for the first time, after talking about her family's history, her mood changes quickly from cheerful to sober. 'Peregrine Hazard, adventurer, magician, seducer, explorer, scriptwriter, rich man, poor man, but neither either beggerman or thief... you spent your childhood on the road, here today, gone tomorrow; you grew up a restless man. You loved change. And fornication. And trouble. And, funnily enough, towards the end, you loved butterflies. Peregrine Hazard, lost among the butterflies, lost in the jungle, vanished away as neatly as if you had become the object of one of those conjuring tricks you were so fond of'. Here Dora lists his bad points 'And fornication. And trouble.', but she describes them in a sober way, because even if they are bad points, they were what Peregrine Hazard was and she is preserving his personality, not changing it to seem better, as someone who loved a person for who they were would. Another interesting comment is 'funnily enough, towards the end, you loved butterflies'. When Dora describes Peregrine, she uses many euphemisms, while she isn't lying about what Peregrine does or about his character, she can cast him in a better light with euphemisms. I think butterfly might be a euphemism or metaphor for moving around and being hard to pin down, as a butterfly is. Some cultures consider butterflies as bad omen, it could be that Dora is using butterflies to explain that Peregrine loved danger, and perhaps she feels he should have seen this coming.
Peregrine's personality can be described as very promiscuous, outgoing, and flirtatious. He is adventurous gets bored easily, not serious, and lives for the moment, whereas Melchior wants to live forever. It is obvious that Dora is annoyed by his adventurousness and his frequent coming and goings in the novel 'pilgrim by name, pilgrim by nature... we'd get a hamper full of rotten fruit...he never knew what would travel and what wouldn't' I think that 'he never knew what would travel and what wouldn't' could be a double meaning, I think this is Dora communicating Peregrines lack of sympathy towards how she feels about him leaving all the time, 'travel' could be another way of saying 'what was bearable' or 'what was understandable', by which she might mean he never knew when to stop.
Unlike anyone else in the novel Dora, the narrator Chance sister, never gives a bad impression of Peregrine. While she does criticize Peregrine from time to time, she makes a point of adding a good point about his character before or after she criticizes him. For example, this quote is where Peregrine is dropped off what is described in such a way that it seems a dubious place 'Love him as I did, I must confess he had a wicked streak.' Dora uses a euphemism 'wicked' to make Peregrine a less dubious sounding character, using the term 'I must confess' sound as though she doesn't want to admit that Peregrine could do wrong.
As a daughter should, it is obvious that Dora loves Peregrine. It is possible that Dora first loved him because of the financial support he gave to that family, and because he spoiled her, 'Perry gave us a lot more than love, in those days. He added another digit to his monthly cheque to pay for dancing lessons. He was a dutiful father. He doubled as a sugar daddy, too.' However as her story continues she talks about not caring about his money 'he couldn't afford to buy us French stuff anymore. Not that we cared. We only thought how much we'd miss him.' Her opinion of what he can give her has changed dramatically as her story continued, as though through the years of her story he earned her trust. I think an important place where Peregrine earned her trust is when he took them backstage in a theatre to corner Melchior, in an attempt to make him acknowledge them. When this fails however, Peregrine comforts stands up for them 'But truly what he did was, he held out his arms to us and we scampered to harbour... "It's a wise child that knows its own father," hissed peregrine... "but wiser yet the father that knows his own child"'. Dora uses the idea of a harbour, which has connotations of safety and home, to describe Peregrine.
It is also interesting to note that while Dora defiantly loves him in a fatherly way, she does appear to be attracted romantically to Peregrine, for example she describes him in a romantic way 'Ooh, wasn't he a handsome young man, in those days.... There was always this quality about Peregrine, especially when he was glorious in his twenties, broad of shoulder, heavy of thigh, with his unruly thatch of burnished, copper hair, the lavish spattering of freckles across his nose, laughing green eyes flecked with gold.' Dora uses more than facial description here, commenting on his figure, which is typical of a romantic description. Dora also un-ashamedly describes Peregrine doing wrong (going to a brothel) as something only just worth commenting about, and with humour. 'What could he be doing in Eaton square, on the spur of the moment, the naughty boy? ... He was straightening his tie and dusting off his jacket... flashed us with a big, cheeky grin.' If Dora considered Peregrine as only a father figure, I think she would be less casual about this memory of Peregrine. She uses a lot of detail here, as though she can remember perfectly, even though she was only about twelve. I think this is a good indication of any kind of love, because of the attention to detail she has about her loved ones.
