Throughout the novel, Wieland, or The Transformation, it
becomes apparent that the Wieland family is not blessed with good fortune. Wieland, Clara, and their friends are
consumed by the voices they hear throughout the story. It is discovered toward the end of the novel
that their “friend” Carwin was the author of the voices they heard, that there
was not a higher power talking to them.
One thing that is never explained in the novel is Clara and Wieland’s father’s
mysterious ways and his tragic death.
The reader becomes aware that Carwin is responsible for the voices that
Wieland heard whom he had thought were God.
Literally speaking, this explains a majority of the story. There are plenty unanswered questions, but at
least the reader is aware of Carwin’s powers of biloquium. The question is, who
or what was responsible for summoning their father to the temple the night of
the spontaneous combustion. As described
in the book, when the clock struck at a certain hour at night, Wieland’s father
was taken over by some anxiety. “At this hour his duty called him to the rock,
and my mother naturally concluded that it was thither he intended to repair”
(Brown, p. 20). Something was summoning
him to awake from his chamber and head toward the rock. It was that night after he had left the
mansion that a gleam of light and shrieks were heard, including a moment of
spontaneous combustion. Their father had
returned with his clothes completely burned off and wounds that eventually led
to his death.
Later in the novel, Wieland heads toward the same temple to retrieve a
letter and is stopped by the voice of his wife Catherine (that is actually
Carwin). This is not the same voice, or
power, that led his father to the same very place. Unless Carwin is also a super natural human
being that never ages! As Clara describes this event in the beginning, she
admits that his death is a mystery.
Throughout the chapter, Clara mentions anxiety multiple times. Clara also mentions “disease” in the chapter,
so it could be implied that during this time period, they could have just
believed that their father was ill and that was the reasoning for his desire to
go to the temple. It could very well be
that their father was really just ill and that his sickness was the cause of
his anxiety. If that is the case, then
why did Brown find it necessary to mention their father’s death?
If Wieland and Clara’s father was just an ill man, then Brown must have
wanted to add the story of him in the beginning of the novel to set a
mysterious tone. When I read the first
few chapters the second time around, I was even more confused as to why the
stories were relevant. If Carwin was the
voice, then it was not like the family was blessed with being able to speak to
God. It could have been that some illness was a part of their family genetics,
but that is much too literal for the essence of the story. By adding the story of their father, it led
the reader to question what was going on within the family. Were they cursed by
some higher power? There are plenty of literal ways to interpret Brown’s
reasoning.
If illness was not the issue for Wieland and Clara’s father, what led
him to the temple that night and why was there any spontaneous combustion? There might have been a higher power speaking
to him or maybe it was his own desperation for God’s approval. How to interpret
the spontaneous combustion by the temple is still difficult for me. The only interpretation I can think of is
that the spontaneous combustion was a type of omen or symbolism for the tragedies
that were to face the family because of their father’s over commitment to his
God that overpowered and eventually ended his life. I believe Brown’s intentions were to make the
reader question the mysterious life of the Wieland family and keep the reader
interested in finding out exactly what it was that was controlling and destroying
their lives.
Hey Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI was also genuinely confused with the father’s life and death. What were the causes for his actions? Faith? Mental illness? Anxiety? One will never really know. I do agree with you that Brown may have included the life of the father to add initial suspense to the novel. If the novel began with explaining Clara and Wieland’s childhood, it wouldn’t hook the reader into the rest of the narrative. Adding an event like spontaneous combustion easily draws in a good crowd. I actually had my own ideas as to what this spontaneous combustion may have been and why the father had a sudden urge to go the temple.
In the novel, Clara’s father is anxiously waiting for midnight to strike. He keeps his eyes on the clock without rest and once it is time, he abruptly sets off to the temple. As we know from Clara, who gets her information from her uncle, her father was engulfed in a bright light on the temple. When the uncle arrives to the entrance of the temple and sees the father, the light suddenly dies out. The light itself seemed to have a mind of its own. What’s left is a charred and nearly dead body.
My idea is that this light was actually divine intervention; God himself. See, I believe that Clara’s father was so devout in his faith that he was to be sent to heaven. He somehow had this feeling in him that this was to happen, explaining his hastiness to get to the temple. The spontaneous combustion was God’s light sending him up to heaven and the light was so intense that he and his clothes burned. This explains why the light suddenly dies out when the uncle appears. God knew it was not the uncle’s time, so he wanted to avoid revealing his wonder to him.
This may seem a little crazy, but then I thought that this novel was a fictional story to begin with. It’s very possible for Brown to include anything he pleased in his novel. Leaving the explanations so vague allows one to come up with theories like this. What do you think?