One: his right arm is injured and, although healing well, he cannot write or type until it is better, so he is deprived of his profession. Therefore, for the moment, his disguise disguises – nothing. He is no longer a journalist masquerading as a clown; willy-nilly, force of circumstance has turned him into a real clown, for all practical purposes, and, what’s more, a clown with his arm in a sling – type of the ‘wounded warrior’ clown. Two: he has fallen in love, a condition that causes him anxiety because he has not experienced it before. Hitherto, conquests came easily and were disregarded. But no woman ever tried to humiliate him before, to his knowledge, and Fevvers has both tried and succeeded. This has set up a conflict between his own hitherto impregnable sense of self-esteem and the lack of esteem with which the woman treats him. He suffers a sense, not so much that she and her companion have duped him – he remains convinced they are confidence tricksters, so that would be no more than part of the story – but that he has been made their dupe.
What do You think about Nights At The Circus (2003)?
