Vanity, Self centerdness and Possessiveness in the novel

Vanity in the novel is present not only in Charles behaviour but also in James`s moves. Charles is a
very proud man, and very often he does not realize that he has to be in shadow. He is a man who is
used to have everyone under control, and now when he lives an isolated life he can`t get rid of that
habit. There are many situation where he exercises vanity.

First, lizzies love flatters to him and as he said in the fisrt part of the novel that her suffering filled him
with a tender joy. He likes the fact that someone wanted him.

Second, Charles showed his vanity when Titus came at Shruff End. Charles persuaded him to swim
together, but didn’t warn him that the sea can be dangerous. Charles did this out of pure vanity,
because he wanted to compete with a boy. Charles saw himself as a strong vital man who can easily
be compared with a schoolboy. When Titus died Charles did realize that he made a mistake by not
warning him of the sea. At first he didn’t want to accept guilt, however he accused Ben for Titus`s
death . But then he put a blame on himself. He came to the conclusion that Titus is killed as a direct
result of vanity.

Beside Charles, James also had exercises vanity. Because of this and the vanity he can’t be rid
of, James is partially to blame for two character deaths. The first death he causes is of a
Sherpa he was fond of. During his travels in the East, he tries to learn “tricks” that appear to
be magic. One such trick is the task of raising his body temperature by mental concentration.
To test this trick out, he travels with his Sherpa friend across an icy mountain pass. There, he
tries to keep both of them warm, through the night, by means of mental concentration.
However, he is unable to and his Sherpa friend dies. James admits that it was his vanity
that killed the Sherpa. The second death James plays a small, but significant, part in is that
of Titus, an adopted child who was raised hopping to be Charles’s son. James, acting out of
vanity, tries to restore Titus to his adoptive parents. Using his spiritual prowess of persuasion,
James convinces Titus to stay at Shruff End and eventually reconcile with his adoptive
parents. This leads to a tragic end, in which Titus is killed by the sea surrounding Shruff End
because James, in his vanity, is unable to save him. James is “attracted to the worldly idea of
power... [He] cannot stay on a truly spiritual path. When he leaves it, Titus dies” (Capitani
105). Thus, James tells Charles, “The last achievement is the absolute surrender of magic
itself” (445). He says that the greatest achievement anyone can make is to liberate oneself
from the tenets of magic, power, and vanity.

Selfcenterdness

Charles wanted to write a book about his relationship with others, but somehow he dominates in the
whole story. He speaks about food, rocks and lives of other people but only in relation to his life. In
the first part of the novel, he did emphasize that this book is forr Clement makin, but it turned out
that she is mentioned only a few times. In the second part of the book he puts his own priorites in
front of others. He wants to keep Gilbert, because he was helpful in the kitchen. He wants to keep
Titus because he will help him to get Hartley again. He wants Hartley for himself convincing
everybody that she wants it, even though she begged him to take her home. He wanted Lizzie to be
faithful to him eventhogh they were not ogether.
He is looking for his happiness all the time

Only when Charles looks at the needs of others only than he is set free

Charles repeatedly and self-consciously draws attention to the diary/ memoir format of his writing,
contrasting it to his previous writings, which were “written in water.” In fact his withdrawing to Shruff End
to write his memoir provides the very foundation and center of everything that happens in the novel.
How does Murdoch use the natural self-absorption of this medium to render a view of Charles that he
himself does not have access to? What are other examples of his self-absorption?

Possessiveness

At the first part of the novel Charles was insanely jealous on his cousin James. Here in the second
part this jealousy continues. He is jealous not only on James, but on Gilbert, Titus, Peregrine, Ben,
Fredie Arkwright. Gilbert has a happy nature. Gilbert and Titus had lead many conversations which
they did not share with Charles, and he was jealous when he would see them in the kitchen. Ben was
in his head a bully, a tyrant but Hartley has chosen him. Ben bought a dog for them and Charles was
jealous when he saw them together. When titus and Hartley spoke about the past, he felt jealousy
because he was in a shadow.

He regards Arrowby as a man who stole his wife to gratify the ‘beastly impulses’ of his
‘possessiveness’ and his ‘jealousy’ (397). Arbelow regards Charles as odious, a bad dream, a demon, a
cancer, and a four-letter man (398-9). Rosina states that he ruins everybody’s marriage and calls him
a sorcerer (108). After he imprisons Mary and writes to Fitch to tell him that she is staying with him
and their son Titus, Fitch calls him an intruder and tells him he knows what sort of a person Arrowby
is and that he is a rotten man, a shit, a destroyer, and, in a word, filth (291). 114 Among the alazon
character types, the most common is the blocking father, a pretentious blocking character. Charles
parodies this character type by trying to be a father to his ‘discarded’ ex-mistress, Lizzie Scherer. He
calls her his ‘child’, his ‘son’ and says that she is the actress who was made by him (41); he rails when
told that Lizzie Scherer and Gilbert Opian are living together (93-8); he even goes to London to learn
more about their life together (161). He gets annoyed when he learns, later, about his cousin’s
relationship with her (407). However, despite his attempts to block the relationship, Gilbert Opian
and Lizzie Scherer remain together (452).

Charles is also the obsessed alazon type. He is obsessed both by power to control and by the past.
Obsessed with a past love for Mary, he tries to manipulate everyone including his cousin to locate
her lost son in order to manipulate him so as to win Mary back. He also tries to make the comic
society gathered in Shruff End support his violent act of imprisoning Mary, but is defeated and forced
by the comic society to give up. In spite of the absurd situations in which he finds himself, his humor
is far from being comic, and his possessive and manipulative obsession has tragic results.