Captain Corelli’s Mandolin Essay Example
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin Essay Example

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin Essay Example

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  • Pages: 7 (1860 words)
  • Published: October 24, 2017
  • Type: Review
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Captain Corelli's Mandolin supports the view that 'tolerance, good temper and sympathy are more important than 'Belief' in a cause or ideology' to quite a certain extent, however personally I think that those feature and belief were mostly parallel to each other and very similar and combined at the same time. Many characters in the book reflect strong belief or more of a tolerant, sympathetic and good tempered nature, whilst also interception of both is illustrated where a few incidents may contain strong faith and those positive aspects as well.

However at most times, the characters have a certain belief in love or political idea or music with helps them embrace their good qualities. Characters like Dr Iannis are portrayed in an extremely positive light, however containing irony in itself, considering that he has no Belief as suc

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h in the religious category. According to the historical context in those times, in Greece people are portrayed as being comparatively more attached to religion than nowadays where many people are atheists.Therefore during that time Dr Iannis, being an atheist whilst also compiling good natured features expresses the ironic situation that those features are more important than Belief even during that time in a society where religion was an essential base of life. He is seen as a strong moral figure, with clear idea of what he is doing especially medically, where people would come to him for healing, and therefore he is a source of comfort for the villagers, with his good temper and sympathetic nature and patience.These characteristics formed situations where he would deal with everyone in a humble manner, such as the time when Pelagia woul

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lose her temper and get emotional fits; he would resist her attitude and violent actions.

This showed a lot of patience and understanding towards her. In the beginning of the novel when the Greek boat sinks, and many of the village men show grief, where Dr Iannis shows sympathy, and puts aside his lack of faith, and offers to go to Church with them. This shows that these qualities are more important than Belief like other characters in the book.Another instance where his sympathy and good temper is expressed, when the priest falls ill in the Church in a revolting manner, with bad smell, Dr Iannis comes up to help him, without any refraining of the hard situation, and therefore provides assistance to the drunk priest. This shows his good temper with even people who contradicted his own belief of no religion, and also expresses how much he is respected for all those features. The human race in that small village benefits from the good nature of Dr Iannis rather than belief of anything.

When Dr Iannis saves Psipsina, who later survives form that dreadful injury, the reader may realize that Dr Iannis is basically a healer, and someone who has a sympathetic nature, even to the extent of going on Lemoni's insistence to save the cat. Apart form that De Bernieres uses language which is quite sophisticated for Dr Iannis, while he writes his book on Cephallonia, which expresses his amount of intellect and how graceful he is even with words, unlike the soldiers.His daughter Pelagia is also shown as being quite good natured to, however not to the extent of Dr Iannis, but still

she has strong morals and stays a virgin till the end of the novel which is quite significant. It shows that she was patient with Captain Corelli and her feelings, even though she loved him, and respected her culture and tradition. In many situations such as when Mandras gets ill from the first time of war, and exaggerates most of it, she and Drosoula show a considerable amount of patience with him.

They clean him up properly while also curing him, with patience, and good temper Pelagia resists all types of acts of attention form him. Before the war she shows patience in small things such as being pinned to the chair when Mandras informs her of his departure, she takes this reality with patience and good temper. She keeps in touch with him, and later on his arrival expresses sympathy as well. De Bernieres shows that even though during the war Pelagia doesn't feel the same way about Mandras, she stays patient and keeps it to herself for quite some time and shows a good attitude to him even when he decides to leave for war the second time.Pelagia with her language and dramatic techniques, such as emotional outbreaks with Corelli and when Mandras leaves, shows that she is a spontaneous character with vibrant attitudes. Her Belief is shown to be in love after Corelli shows up, and this makes her go on and therefore cherish even times in the war; however characters like her kept their good nature and Belief balanced.

With all those features she benefits the society by becoming a doctor, and holding on to her moral values strongly, therefore showing importance.Therefore

even at that time, she breaks the stereo typical image of women, and therefore achieves her dream with patience and tolerance of everything that happened to her and her loved ones. Therefore she shows patience not only to people around her, but to herself as well. However she is essentially shown to have good temper, with her goat unlike Dr Iannis, and people around her at times she gets frustrated, and is shown to become unstable but still tolerant at the same time. very character is a bit different form the other with a few different beliefs, which helps shape the meaning of the novel form a political and personal side, therefore showing us how themes can be interlinked. Carlo also is shown to have belief in love and Corelli therefore helping him in becoming a hero; however he incorporates all the positive features as well therefore causing interception.

Even though he is different and therefore outlines theme of war, he manages to believe in the positive things in life and move on with his good nature, therefore it makes all those features mentioned and belief quite parallel at times, where both are the same, and related to each other. Even though during those times according to the historical context his secret was unacceptable, he still got through as being the honourable hero in the end with those good qualities.De Bernieres tries to show that at times a person can get through hard times with faith and belief which is a motivation, especially during the war, when Carlo was motivated by Francesca and therefore he went on. Therefore his belief and nature integrated together and one

wasn't more important than the other. With tolerance towards the horrible cold in the war with Francesco, he not only shows physical tolerance but emotional tolerance and sympathy when he tells his mother how Francesca died.

Aresenios is a priest however seems quite unstable with drinking habits and greed, which leads the people to taunt him at times, and make fun of him with Velisarios, he also outlines the theme of religion during those times. But later on the village sympathizes and therefore get him gifts later on, this shows that Belief could be undermined at times, which in the book is symbolized through Arsenios, however in the end, good temper, sympathy and tolerance are more significant.All these various features are more pronounced in the novel compared to Belief, and therefore are shown in a more positive light. The times with Stamatis and his wife we see, how the men are also tolerant in the play in various situations, when his wife nags him, and gives the reader an insight to levels of tolerance and temper and sympathy of characters. Mussolini, Hitler and Mandras are shown as being facist and therefore follow that certain Belief, however in the end this leads to Mandras' death and his demoralization.

After having such a belief the novel eradicates his other humanistic features such as good temper, sympathy and tolerance, therefore leading him to becoming very arrogant and negative. This is shown to corrupt him rather than embrace him like other villagers where religion would console them or make them better or a belief would help them get through problems like Pelagia. He loses his respect as a man with Pelagia,

and is disowned by his own mother because of his Belief.Comparatively this argument shows that Belief doesn't hold that much importance and therefore led to a negative outcome. Others like Corelli believe in their music and mandolin and love, therefore he lives life with joy and happiness, however it doesn't mean that he loses his morals, in fact he gains even more respect and love for Pelagia.

Therefore at time the belief helps the person be sympathetic and good tempered and tolerant at the same time.Corelli controls his attraction towards Pelagia and also learns how to be tolerant with Dr Iannis' cold attitude in the beginning. These small instances however show that they outlines him more importantly than his belief or music, and therefore readers may remember him for his good nature rather than anything else. His music helps calm him down however his good temper and sympathy towards the Greek at times is seen as a sign of his nature, and therefore valued more than his belief in anything else, at the same time his love just makes him a better person.Therefore his belief leads him to go off and fight honourably in the book, therefore showing how sometimes belief makes a person produce those qualities.

He also outlines the genre of romance and how it helped him get through the war and embraced his life, and his passion for music. The novel's language is at times quite crude when the soldiers are mentioned, however at other times when Dr Iannis speaks with his graceful manner and knowledge of Italian the reader can interact with different cultures in the book.De Bernieres creates a combination

of events and small things which affect the book and perception of belief and the latter features. The political and romantic genre both combined express various views of belief and the positive features in the question, where at time both are seen as important whilst at other times the belief could be seen as a weak framework from the political side. The structure of the novel starts of calmly with a slight hint of danger and war, and therefore builds up from there, and therefore the characters build up.

It is also expressed that political belief is more dangerous and less important than other beliefs such as love and joy, for instance Mandras dies a disgraceful death to regain his honour and due to his facist belief. This shows us that other beliefs such as love, music and joy, and also Dr Iannis who believed in morals were more important and therefore gained such feature such as good temper, tolerance and sympathy. Therefore they all gained these positive features with the help of their beliefs which combined to become more important through out the novel.

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