While reading Pat Barker’s Life Class, the reader is given a slew of first impressions. Most, however, are turned around immediately, like in the main character Paul, and in the character of Kit Neville. When we first meet Paul Tarrant, he is sitting in the back of life class at Slade, finished with his attempt to draw the naked woman standing on the dais. Not one of his best works, he storms out at the slightest criticism from his teacher. This gives the reader the initial impression that he is a short tempered, hot-headed person. Almost immediately, though, the reader is faced with a new side of this character as we witness him save a young prostitute, no more than fifteen, from a middle-age buyer, “He…felt a tweak of lust that hardly broke the surface of his consciousness before it was transmuted into anger. Who had done this to her? She was such a child” (Barker 9). His righteous anger on a total stranger’s behalf gives the reader the impression that Paul is really a good guy.
The switch in impressions happens with the character Kit Neville as well as Paul. When we first meet Neville he is sitting in a bar, conversing with some mutual friends. We are introduced to him through the eyes of Paul, who is also meeting him for the first time. Kit beings by talking about his rather unsavory behavior back at Slade that got him expelled “He didn’t like my work. I didn’t like it much either, so I can’t hold that against him. And…he disapproved of my relationship with one of the models. She got pregnant and I didn’t want to be fathered” (Barker 19). This rejection of responsibility by Neville sets up his character as an immature and unreliable man. Later in the story, Paul goes to see some of Neville’s paintings in a gallery. There, he is shocked by their maturity and level of skill which was far beyond his own “Did he like them? He didn’t know, but he saw at once that this was fully mature work streets ahead of anything he could produce” (Barker 43). Paintings as complex and established as the ones done my Neville are unexpected from such an immature man. This helps continue the development of the theme that first impressions are often wrong.
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3 comments:
I like your analysis. I can clearly see how for both characters the reader is given a negative first impression, but later it changes into one that is almost the opposite. I agree with your theme that first impressions aren't always right.
Ooh. I so want to read this now. Anyway, I like the first impressions thing-- it's so obvious that that's all we do, judge by first impressions. Really, though, we shouldn't even be surprised at the change of character-- if we were really rational beings, we would observe them for a long length of time before judging anything. But, as we are, 1st impressions are the most important of the important. The author seems like they did a great job of portraying this, and you did too! How's the present?
I am very muck in agreement with you on our first imprssion of Paul. He hits the man in a sudden rage and I think this show or forshadows the feeling in Paul that Tonks says isn't there. I like your theme as Jade says but I think we were given the true Paul right out. I do think as humans we do judge people right out instead of getting to know them but I also think our first impression of Paul was right; he is compassionate but stubborn.
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