The Tower

Marghanita Laski:
 She was a feminist, left-wing author who contributed through her
writing to the feminist movement. It was a time when women were
pursuing equal rights in a patriarchal society 
 The story is about a young newlywed woman who is struggling with
real and psychological challenges in her new relationship with her
ambitious and pompous husband. The theme of feminism explores
deep emotional scars that the protagonist is dealing with

Analysis:
 Caroline, the protagonist in this story, has taken her car for the first
time outside of Florence, where she has moved after her marriage to
her husband, who constantly tries to overshadow her with his own
knowledge. 
 “..something of her own to contribute…”
 Husband had lots of souvenirs due to constant travel and
nature of work, uses this knowledge as a way to throw his
weight around. She shows that she can be his equal when she
goes alone in this exploration of the countryside. She has her
guide-book but she is not fluent with her Italian.
 A power struggle is seen – she is annoyed by his “know it all”
attitude, to make a point to him and herself she travels outside
of Florence and explores the countryside. She is intrigued by
the tower and secretly hopes that he does not have any
knowledge about it so that she can win his respect by sharing
her experience 
 She wants to escape his influence, work on her own
initiative and individualism by driving on her own,
taking pride that she follows all the traffic laws. She
wants to make a statement … to show autonomy 
 Strong symbolism:
  Tower:
 Phallic symbol of male domination 
 Symbolizes power and control 
 The bats inside the tower symbolise the emotional scars
she has
 Going out alone:
 She wants to be alone, in search of her identity
 The husband seems to take quite a lot of pride in his knowledge,
using it to prove his superiority. He is pompous, overbearing and self
absorbed. He is also condescending when he compared his wife to
the young lady in the portrait
 She doesn’t want to be classified as an “ordinary tourist”
 She resents the fact that her husband took her to famous,
extraordinary places showing off elite Italian pieces while she
just wanted to learn about ordinary art. She feels controlled
and overpowered 
 There is sarcasm in the calling of these trips
“pilgrimages” – for her husband Neville they exude 
elite aura 
 She was quite done with Italian art – the excitement had
waned, as seen in the usage of “dutifully” “politely” ~
every line is reeking of passive-aggressive sarcasm
 She is irritated by his refusal to admit even the slightest bit of
ignorance, when he talks about Giovana and her husband and
the history behind it 
 Foreshadowing:
 Repeated mentions of Giovana, black magic
 She is “rather like” the young girl ~ like her, she
was young, beautiful, and asked too many
questions, and perhaps  like her, she will be
doomed to the same fate
 The reader is then moved back to the present time, driving to the
tower
 It was barren around the tower, indicative of what was to
come… no life (symbolism and foreshadowing)
 She enters it, thinking it’s going to be a quick visit for the
proof of independence, and starts climbing the stairs
 The voice of reason (the inner instinct of survival) tells her to turn
back when she reaches quite high near the top
  A buildup of suspense – hesitation, shivering – despite her
sixth sense pushes on into uncharted territory
 She is doing this only to prove to herself and her
husband that she is mature 
 The breaks in the rail symbolize the uncertainties of life
 The danger increases when the rail crumbles away, creating
more and more suspense in the  atmosphere
 To create tension for the reader, every step she takes to
ascend is highlighted – it marks the passage of time, and
the steps down are perhaps a final countdown to her
death 
 The timespan is stretched to make this dull act of
climbing steps more interesting, as now the reader is
wondering what would happen with each passing step..
 In her descent the twos exceed the actual number of
470… the count goes up to 523. Does she literally fall to
the dark pit and die? 
 The fact that the reader knows that there are 470 steps in
total but the count continues indicates the possibility of
Caroline falling off 
 There is constant tussle between the voice of reason and
her desire to prove herself. Her ego is badly bruised.
 When she reaches the end, there is nothing but a piece of broken
railing, creating even more fear, which has paralysed the reader as
well as Caroline
 She realizes as she is emotionally and physically spent that it was
pointless for her to go through this ordeal just to assuage her broken
ego
 Once she reaches the platform at the top, the self-destructive feeling
takes over momentarily but the voice of reason prevents her from
doing anything drastic or dangerous 
 She finds herself in a dilemma should she end her agony or be
forced to return to her suffocating marriage. If she lets her ego
control her actions she will put an end to her miseries. She is
experiencing fright which is real and also psychological 
 She tries to keep her nerves under control, talking to herself
positively to make herself step back 
 Eventually, she begins to go down, she decides to move down
cautiously to show the strength of her conviction to prove a point.
 The descent is dangerous and she is dizzy if she misses a single step,
she would perish. There is no safety net
 She purposely steps down/ jumps down to end her life … is
she depressed with her life and in her despondency ends her
life or
 She accidentally falls 
 If she does die, then the story she was writing, in the
beginning, would never be finished, just like the story of
her life – she would never be able to fight her fate right,
fix her marriage and find true happiness.

Author’s Craft:
Setting: 

 In Florence, Italy and the Italian country-side

 The village was annihilated due to superstition after the
mysterious happenings at the tower there is no life or greenery
in its surroundings. The reader picks up on the tension.

Narration:

 The story is told from a 3rd Person narrative. 

 The reader is able to look at the story as an independent
observer. 
 There are also flashbacks that keep the reader engaged

Plot:

Conflict:

 Within the protagonist, there is a battle taking place between the

voices of insecurity and her ego

Climax:
  The Climax is at the end, when despite the voice of reason, she
continues to climb, eventually reaching the top, only to realise that
she has no escape she must go down the treacherous path that she
climbed up in the hope that she will have some memorable and
valuable experiences to share with Neville

Ending:

 It is a cliffhanger – perhaps Caroline has succumbed to her injuries,

her spirit broken, or perhaps she has survived and will go back to her
unfulfilling marriage

Literary Devices:
Symbolism:

 The tower has a phallic symbolism attached, depicting male

domination
 The stairs represent the challenges of life and climbing up the
‘gender ladder’
 After reaching the top of the ‘gender ladder’, nothing changes
for Caroline. She is still very dependent and does not become
self-reliant – she is still someone’s wife 
 The descent is more frightening as she faces reality and the
impediments which lay ahead. These are symbolized by the bats
 When she realizes there’s no railing it is symbolic of her dead-end
relationship with Nevill
  Does she even have anything to salvage in her marriage? 

Alliteration:

  ‘timeless time’ highlighting the fact that this climb seems like
forever
 It could also be allocated to her dull marriage, which is like a
dragging dead weight attached to her ankle  
Imagery:

 Of Giovananna’s portrait: “The picture was painted…calm brown

eyes under plaits of honey-gold hair”
 Her husband? Niccolo is described to have “A thin white face
with deep-set black eyes that stared intently into hers”,
presenting him as an intimidating man
 Of the tower: “It was built of narrow red bricks…arched doorway”

Parallels (Between Giovana and Caroline):

 Giovana died at eighteen – is her life remotely linked to Caroline’s

fate, this thought lingers throughout the story
 This is foreshadowed by the husband’s comparison of the two
 Despite the generations between them – 400 years – both Giovanna
and Caroline have similar challenges. Both died mysteriously with
an impending presence of domineering husbands.
 In their fight to mark their identity, both young women
disappear into oblivion

Suspense:

 The counting of the steps draws attention to each passing moment

 Attention is drawn to Caroline’s uncertainty with “pressed” and
hesitantly” to describe her search for the rail
 Her conflicted mental state is shown by the usage of dashes in
her dialogue with herself, highlighting how loose her train of
thought was
 The alliteration when she reaches the top
 Her paralysis

Characterization: 
Neville:
  He is a pompous, domineering man who is desperate to prove his
intellect not only to his wife but also the people he meets. 
 This is seen when he often visits cultural attraction not to gain
new knowledge – he already knew it all, as seen when he is
able to provide a description and history of every art piece
being displayed – but to show off to his wife that he knew this
knowledge. 
 It is also portrayed by the fact that these trips were a sort of
“pilgrimage” for him – they were not passionate endeavours
but a habitual, almost religious event that he placed high
importance on (for it was a way to prove his place in society).
 His condescending nature is shown in the way he treats his wife,
acting like a teacher congratulating a child for doing well in class
 He also has a superiority complex, which is why he wants to bring
his wife to his standard and class, which he sees as better than hers

Caroline:

 From the beginning, we can see that she is unhappy with her
marriage, taking what little victories (such as writing) that she can
get
 Despite this, she is still forced to follow him around on his
endeavours, even taking the Italian guidebook she was “urged”
to take, 
 Due to this, she decides to rebel against her husband and the
patriarchy by climbing the tower

Themes:
Dependence:

 In everyday life, Caroline is dependent on her husband for

everything from food to a status in society and knowledge about
high art
 Even when she does manage to rebel against it by climbing the
tower, she has to convince herself to return, for the only alternative
to this dependence on the patriarchy was, ultimately, death
Fear:

 Of her husband – she feels overwhelmed in his presence. 

 He is not presented to the reader but his presence is a very
strong antagonistic force that drives the protagonist to action
which results in the suspense builds up
 Agoraphobia

Control

The Patriarchy:

 This forces Caroline to suffer through the trips he takes to educate

her due to her “duty as a British Council wife”. 
 It inhibits her ability to express herself, forcing her to “listen
politely” to the monologues about art she did not want to hear. 
 If these subservient expectations and social rules did not exist, she
certainly would not repress her own individualism to become who
her husband wished to be. 
 These rules and expectations are symbolically represented by the
Tower, which stands tall, a phallic symbol for male dominance.

Inner Demons:

 Caroline to question her identity without society and her husband,

thus introducing a third power – her own conflicted internal
monologue. 
 It is a reactionary force, arising in response to Neville and the
society he represented. 
 All of this made her question who she really was, making her try to
carve out a niche for herself.
  How she did this: climbing up the Tower. 
 With each step, it becomes more and more extreme, till she
reaches the top, where it tries to get her to jump off (“it would
be much easier to fall”), tricking her into believing that that
was the only way to become who she wanted to be.
Husband:

 Neville attempts to establish control over her by establishing his

intellectual and artisanal superiority and attempting to bring her up
to his standard
 See the characterization of Neville

Rebellion:

Against the Patriarchy:

 When Caroline decides to climb up the Tower, her opinion that

“There ought to be a wonderful view at the top” highlights how
delightful it would be to cast off her chains, she is directly opposing
a system backed by decades of sexism and tyranny.
 Each step she takes is a direct blow against what she has been
taught to do by society. 
 The writer makes this seemingly mundane action of climbing
stairs extremely tense and dragging by highlighting every step
she takes with a number. 
 When the further danger of a lack of railings is introduced at the
375th step (a symbolization of how she was moving away from the
safe routine of everyday life), the magnitude of this endeavour is
characterized. 
 However, even though she does manage to reach the top
societal control is so all-encompassing that she is not elated
but rather feels nothing, even convincing her that she wanted
to drop this useless quest, making her believe that “the reality
must be that she was safe at home with Neville”. 

Against her Inner Demons:

  It is at this point that when the call of the void becomes overbearing
that her voice of reason finally kicks in, initiating an internal
struggle between suicidal tendencies caused by an absolute lack of
self-confidence and self-preservation 
  It is depicted by her verbal conversations with herself, which
makes it seem like she was trying to convince herself what to
do. 
 The tenseness of that moment is highlighted extremely
effectively with the usage of alliteration – it is described as
“timeless time”, making it seem to go on forever. 
 When it initially starts to win, an ally of her self-doubt, the bats in
the tower, attack her, again causing her extreme fear and pain. 
 The author purposefully leaves it ambiguous as to how this
struggle ended – perhaps she fell to her death, or perhaps she
exited to her car, so scared that she still counted her steps.  

Against her Husband:

 Caroline is obviously frustrated by her husband’s ‘pilgrimages’,

having become “anaesthetized to Italian art”. 
 These trips and guidelines are quite stifling for Caroline,
which instigates in her a wish to find “something of her own to
contribute”. 
 This is expressed physically manifests in her visiting The Tower
despite its ominous history in an attempt to one-up her husband’s
constant quests.
  This wrangle against her husband’s authority was quite
important for her, illustrated by her “explosive relief” upon
conquering them. 
 She feels inconsequential that she has nothing to stay and contribute,
for her is bigger than life
 The tower, a phallic symbol, represents her terrible marriage
 The step she takes up the tower represents her everyday
struggle against the patriarchy and her husband
 The literal struggle was the climb up, an attempt to have some
feat to boast about 
 The patriarchal society expected her to be subservient to her husband

Quotes:
Something of her own to contribute
Anaesthetized to Italian art

Thirty-nine, forty, forty-one

The breaks in the railing became more and more frequent

The whole thing’s absolutely pointless

She was immeasurably, unbelievably high and alone and the ground below
was a world away

Timeless time

It was horror beyond conceivable horror