Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[hela]

Dear teachers,

Would you please explain these ideas to me?

For thirty years now I have been studying my fellow-men. I do not know very much about them. I should certainly hesitate to engage a servant on his face, and yet I suppose it is on the face that for the most part we judge the persons we meet. We draw our conclusions from the shape of the jaw, the look in the eyes, the contour of the mouth. I wonder if we are more often right then wrong. Why novels and plays are so often untrue to life is because their authors, perhaps of necessity, (1) make their characters all of a piece. (2) They cannot afford to make them self-contradictory, for then they become incomprehensible, and yet self-contradict is what most of us are. We are a haphazard bundle of inconsistent qualities.

1a) = each character had a temperament without nuances, changes, weaknesses, contradictions...
b) all characters were given the same temperament, they all looked the same.

2a) Writers could not allow the characters to be self-contradictory;
b) Writers could allow themselves to make their characters self-contradictory.

Many thanks,
Hela

[asterix]

1a. and 2a. are what the writer means.