Madame Crommelynck is certainly one of Black Swan Green’s most interesting characters. Her dialogue is metaphor and allusion laden and her impact on Jason is profound as such. However, there’s a sort of irony in how she presents herself.
One of the more notable conversations the two have is about truthfulness and beauty. Speaking to Jason about his poetry, Madame Crommelynck says “if an art is free of falseness, it is, a priori, beautiful.” She puts a huge emphasis on the fact that Jason needs to be truthful in his art.
Their weekly visits are soon cut short for a shocking reason, Madame Crommelynck is arrested. Her sudden departure makes her character quite paradoxical, after all how could she hide so much if she believed in truth?
In another previous scene, she shows Jason a photograph of herself as a young girl. Jason doesn’t realize it’s her at first, Madame Crommelynck confirms it is saying “Yes. Whatever beauty is, I had it in those days. Or it had me.” While there’s a lot of meaning packed into this simple statement, I think it’s notable how she doesn’t consider herself beautiful now. Perhaps it’s because she’s not truthful to herself and others anymore?
Madame Crommelynck is definitely one of the more unique characters in Black Swan Green. Not only does she give Jason mixed signals about the quality of his writing, she also leaves the narrative abruptly as you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about her appearance being somehow odd. The whole tone of the passage with her in it, accompanied with the fact that she's so different from everyone else that Jason knows made it such a compelling and pivotal passage. I think she offered advice to Jason that he couldn't have gotten anywhere else, and is a memorable and important character for that reason. Great post!
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