PIERO CAVALLARI   cl. 4 A                                                                                                 A.S. 2011/2012

FOLLETT VS SHAKESPEARE

I'm reading the novel  A place called freedom (1995) by Ken Follett, in which the author developed a magnificent plot from the teeming streets of London to the infernal hold of a slave ship, from the smothering darkness of an Irish coal mine to the open and free fields in a Virginian tobacco plantation.

Among all the intrigues between different members of the Jamissons, a family which owns some coal mines in Ireland, I want to focus on the relationship between Jay Jamisson, the youngest of two brothers-in-law, and his mother Alicia, the Sir George Jamisson's second wife.

Father has shown a clear preference for the elder son, Robert, since he and Jay were children. Alicia doesn't agreed on his husband's way to manage this, up to the last offence Jay has to suffer:

"...now you hate him" Jay says. "Ever since he began to favor your brother over you"  his mother replies.

Jay is twenty-one by now. So I'm asking myself: how long the mother has to protect his son from difficulties or injuries? When does she has to let him free to live his own real life, with its risks and choices to face every day?

In the novel the mother son relationship seems more like an alliance against Father's injustices. Alicia is firm to reach her purpose: her son will get his portion in life from his Father, a piece of the family patrimony, to guarantee him his own future.

Alicia keeps under control every aspects of this problem. She doesn't let Jay to sort it out. Indeed she says:

"I've spent all night trying to think of a way to make things right for you, and so far I haven't succeeded. But don't despair. Something will come up."

In my opinion she is too protective, Jay can't improve in facing life troubles because he hasn't the possibility to fail in it: so the son is damaged at the end. But it seems to me Jay doesn't dislike his mother's protection (à attentions). Indeed he adopts an infant tone, as he wants to highlights his position of a poor victim of his Father's preferences:

"What made my father like this? Why does he hate me? Why does he treat me so badly?"

 THE COMPARISON IN HAMLET

The oedipal complex between Hamlet and Gertrude is completely upturned:

•1)      Alicia's attentions focus on her son's feelings  while Gertrude's quick remarriage shocks Hamlet's feelings.

•2)      The parent of the opposite sex, Sir George Jamisson, is crossed by both the mother and the son while Claudius is a rival only for Hamlet to get Gertrude's attentions.

•3)      Alicia hates her husband while Gertrude falls in love with her husband's brother.

•4)      Jay's mother tries anyhow to protect him from injustices while Gertrude makes Hamlet suffers for her behavior, when he needs her attentions most.

I enjoy discovering two symmetric points of view about this theme in a very close time.