Sunset Song: Chris Guthrie As a Powerful Character
Uploaded by Andra0rz on Jan 14, 2004
Question: Choose a novel (Sunset Song) which is influenced by the presence of a POWERFUL or overbearing character. SHOW HOW the novelist creates this impression of the character and discuss to what extent you felt you could SYMPATHISE with him/her. In your answer, you must refer closely to the text (ie quote) and to at least two of: CHARACTERISATION, narrative technique, language, THEME or any other appropriate feature. Setting is also appropriate.
Critical Response to Sunset Song by Andrew McCann
Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s “Sunset Song” is hailed as one of the greatest pieces of Scottish fiction, with some basis on the author’s knowledge of the area. Set at the turn of the 19th century it follows the life of Chris Guthrie and the events she encounters in her life. Chris faces many trials in her young life, over the relatively short span of the story. Her parents die, her brother leaves and she is left alone to work on the farm. From there she marries and loses her first husband and is faced with life affecting decisions. Gibbon creates a powerful character who makes the reader sympathetic to her cause.
Following her father’s death Chris is told by the lawyer that she is now a wealthy young woman. Chris shows her determination and also her attachment to the land when she decides to continue running the farm on her own. “she was going to live on at Blawearie a while…but you can’t live there alone!” this shows Chris as a powerful character as she deals with the lawyer in a brazen fashion when women were still seen as lesser than men and not eligible to run a farm. It also helps create sympathy for Chris as she has just experienced the loss of her father and she is still a strong character. Chris defies these social prejudices by stating what she means to do and not backing down from her position. “Just? Hell, a woman’s mind just!...Chris hardly listened, father’s will had said she could do what she liked.”, this again shows Chris as a powerful character as she stands up to a man in a position of power and gets what she wants. This event evokes sympathy for Chris as she is fighting against what was acceptable at the time and proves she is a strong character.
In the latter part of the novel, Chris is being...