The characters and narrative method of the short story "The bottom line and the sharp end" by Fay Weldon

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Fay Weldon created 2 different images of woman nature in her story.

The first one embodies absorbing love, for the sake of which there are no barriers. The heroine was leading life, which was full of ups and downs. It was love which was providing her with suffers and happiness. She was not making plans for life, feelings were guiding her. But it was the embodiment of her happiness. And at the end she was happy and satisfied with her life.

        

The second  image embodies the lack  of feelings. An insipid(пресный) and scheduled life bereaved this heroine the world of feelings. It was happening  subconsciously, as feelings could  prevent her from achieving her aims, because they are the powers that can change any plans. The heroine was afraid of them. She thought that permanency and prosperity were her happiness at the beginning of the story.

The images of heroines are unreal, as they are created by the author. Both characters are described indirectly. Only through the descriptions of appearance, certain details, speech and actions we learn author’s attitude towards his heroines.

So, now I’m going to consider these images more carefully and I will try to show how they help us to learn the message.

Avril

Avril le Ray is the main characters in the story. For the first time we met Avril when she came to the salon of her old friend Helen. From its beginning we learnt that she was a rich and fashionable woman once ”30 years before Avril had worn expensive, daring green shoes with satin bows, all better to flirt in..” But now ”..Avril was scraggy haggard and pitifully brave.. her shoes, with their scuffed high heels, were still green, but somehow vulgar and pitiable, and the legs above them were knotted with veins” this is the first description of her appearance from which we can say that this woman was brave and had desire for life.

        We saw her very unhappy and weeping. She came to Helen’s salon, after the recurrent parting with her sweetheart. This love was like mutually beneficial existing. Two people needed each other. She was helping him to “kick the habit”, he was brightening  up her lonely life. But he vanished with her money. Probably she understood that it was not love, as she had doubt whether it was right to tell him about her feelings or not. Or possibly she felt defenceless, having opened her love. It was her last infatuation for man, about which we heard from her.

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From the further narration we learnt Avril’s life, her love stories, her values and the style of life. So the most part of narration about Avril is devoted to her love stories. We see that love is the sense of her life. Every time when she failed, it was exactly love, passion and zest for life what gave  her strength to live.

Let us remember when Avril had fallen in love for the first time. As she remembered it was her “one true love”. Then she was only 16, she played Lady Godiva, and she had so ...

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