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 long hair that she even could sit on it. He was 17. They had a romantic dream to run away and to marriage. But everything changed when Avril impelled by her feelings had made a very defamatory (бесчестящий) action. And there was an absurd thing. Avril understood it very clearly, but she was ready to do everything for the sake of love, even to cross her honour, as the only thing the girl desired, was staying forever and together with her sweetheart. As soon as the boy got the confirmation of her love, he stopped treating her as a woman whom he could devote all his life. At the end she bored him, or maybe this action bereaved Avril the mystery and special appeal. She suffered heartly, but still any other times she was absorbed by the feelings, she dreamed, she desired, but men rejected her ideas of joint life, family and children born from her every time she offered it. She said: “No one takes you seriously once you take your clothes off”. For the sake of her beloved she even had terminations for several times. She obliged any desire of her sweetheart, who only cared for his career. It tells us about her recklessness. So going on this way, she lost the ability to have children. Unlike careerist, her next sweetheart wanted a family and children, but she “never fell for baby with him”. They also parted. There were a lot of men in her life, and she loved everybody in her way.
Going this way we can see the evolution of Avril’s love. The first one was like fairy tale - passionate and imprudent. Following ones were more sensible, as she began to realize the reasons of her misfortunes. They were results of her imprudence. At the end ahe said : “We gave each other pleasure, didn’t we? Fair exchange, while it lasted. Everything finishes, that’s the bottom line.” Avril’s relations with men turned into something what reminds me of the bargain.
So I have already said, Avril was happy living the life she led. She wasn’t afraid of being misunderstood by surrounding people. It never cared her how her actions would be estimated by them. She came to Helen’s salon in dirty clothes and reeking of sweat, while rich women were dressed in expensive clothes and jewels. It was looking like challenge to all people, she gave to understand them that it didn’t care Avril what they would think of her. She was both rich and poor, she was both happy and miserable. She took risks, she was changing always (her numerous different hairstyles can admit this), she could not settle down. And she was really happy during her life, she cognized taste of life, as she was not afraid to live a whole life, she was not afraid to suffer, because before sufferings she was always happy. It was worth it. And at the end she confessed that only thing she regretted that love and sex could not go for ever.
Helen
It is important to mention that we learn Avril’s character also in the light of Helen’s attitude to Avril. Helen is also the main character. Helen is the direct opposite of Avril. At the beginning of the story we learnt that she had envied Avril in their youth. Avril was rich and wore expensive clothes, she was surrounded by luxury. Helen wanted to have all this. She desired prosperity and fame. For Avril luxury was only an insignificant and not essential part of life, she knew there were more important things than wealth. And having lost the wealth, she could afford being happy. But Helen was not able to imagine happiness without it.
Two years had already passed from their last meeting, Helen’s attitude had changed. Firstly she was irritated by ordinary unexpected Avril’s coming. “Sometimes Avril would vanish for a year or so and Helen would hope she had gone for good …” At this time she felt irritation, because Avril’s form didn’t correspond to the luxury of salon and rich visitors. But this time Helen was more indulgent. She even feels sympathy for Avril. Her dirty clothes, smell of sweat mixed with smell of cosmetics didn’t disgust her. She recalled that “her Nan had smelt like that”.
Avril’s story of life made Helen think over her own one. We know that Helen achieved everything she desired – “Helen owned the salon, and she had a husband, and grown children, and savings, and a dog, a cat and a garden..” At the beginning we might think that Helen had an ideal life that she was satisfied with it. But soon the author directly gives us Helen’s philosophy: “..steadiness, forbearance, always succeeded whether at work, in marriage, in the establishment of a home, the bringing up of children. You made the most of what you had. You were not greedy; you played safe; and you won.” At once Helen’s ideal life seems to be an accurate and worked out scheme. So at the beginning of the story Helen is antagonist. She changes her world-view, which is closer to author’s one, as Avril tells her life story.
The first time when Helen inwardly responded to Avril’s words was, when she compared her and Avril’s meaning of love. She hoped that they had different meaning. It was unacceptable for her to have any resemblance with Avril. Helen as yet did not understand the meaning of Avril’s words: “ - So you only love people who hurt you?-she asked cautiously. – That’s love, isn’t it?.. That’s how you know you love them, because they can hurt you. Otherwise, who cares?”
The second time, more profitable one, was when Helen understood that she had never took the risk, she had never tried to change something in her life, in her work. Her life was smooth and monotonous. “Helen felt weary of the salon and her bank account and her marriage and everything she valued: and of her tidy hair and sensible shoes and the way she never took risks and how her youth had passed all she had ever known had been in front of her eyes, and fear had kept her from turning her head or seeing what she would rather not see.”
The meaning of Avril words came up to her. She understood that love was when you cared of treatment of your sweetheart, he could make you both misery and happy. She did not know whether Gregory noticed her absence or not. “Would he care?” she asked herself. It is possible that they had fed up with each other.
The crucial moment in Helen’s life finally took place when she got the result of her first risk. But after the shock and even giddiness she felt “agreeably purged, sensuous, like her Nan’s little girl again”. Helen’s new life began. In support of my words I will note that Helen herself approved this change. Helen, bravely, took Gregory around to listen to Avril’s sing. She had never done it before. Then she needed changes.
Narrative method.
In this story a third person narration is provided. There is an omniscient author because she does not only observe the events but also estimate them. She penetrates into Avril’s and Helen’s mind, tells us about their internal state. But from time to time we look at the events from heroin’s point of view, for example when Avril tells us her life story. The first person narration is used here. It gives emotional narration, and we are imbued with sympathy and develop a fellow-feeling for the heroine. As we know Avril conveys the author’s message at the end of the story “you’d better have as much as you can, while you can. And in the end, there is only you and only them, and not what they think of you, but what you think of them.” So Avril is an author’s mouthpiece here.
[sʌb'kɔn(t)ʃəslɪ] подсознательно
[ɪm'pruːd(ə)n(t)s] неблагоразумие безрассудство
Пахнуть чем-то неприятным
[ɪn'dʌlʤənt] снисходительный
Чувственный ['sen(t)sjuəs]