Roland J Pean

21 February 2024

Dr Kara Dorris

EN 351 - The Romantic Movement

Humanity both fears and adores death, we are a creature of contradictions in that sense.

We fear and shun the images of bodies piled from the plagues and age but when it is our family,

friends, our loved ones we cannot look away. In this section we see The Countess die, “The

Countess of Windsor died during our abode of Dijon. …’I am Glad, however, that I am not a

victim of the plague; probably I should have died at this hour, though the world had continued as

it was in my youth’ ”(339). This woman who once rejected Lionel as beneath her family now

clasps his hand as she dies regretting that he saw her in this state while grateful that she could see

him. Then further to create a commentary on humanity as a whole, the entire book the plague has

left everyone treating it as the end of the world when it is just the end of Man, as The Countess

says the world still goes on as it did in her youth Humanity says it is the end of the world yet as

she dies she sees the world is still proceeding as it did when humanity wasn’t dead.

Then in a broad sense have Adrian the diplomat and Lionel the Wildman who have in

essence become a mirror and contradiction from their earlier selves. “I, as my nature prompted,

did not prognosticate evil, but explained it away as a mere casual incident. Not so Adrian. He

was seized with sudden trembling and apprehension, and he called to me with vehemence to

steer quickly for land, and, when near, leapt from the boat, half falling into the water; and

scrambling up the steep bank, hastened along the narrow strip of garden, the only level space

between the lake and the mountain.”(355) When Clara and Evely do not greet them at the docks
the once passion ruled and cynical Lionel hopes patiently that it was just them losing track of

time or needing to find something before they came, hopeful and cerebral Adrian is rushing forth

like a madman believing something is wrong. They have become complete opposites of

themselves yet they are also identifiably a single person throughout the novel despite all thew

contradictions of both the statements and the facts. This is the fundamental and mercurial face of

humanity, that we can become complete opposites yet still be the same.

Where else do you see this?