My Tea with Madame Descartes and "Character"

"Does a character emerge from a story, or does a story merge from a character?"

This quote was taken out of chapter two on character and I find it most interesting to think about. I feel that this saying may have a tendency to equal each other out. I have found that both the story and the character developed simultaneously. For example in the poem, "My Tea with Madame Descartes", took almost half of the poem to simply describe the ambiance and character of Madame Descartes. Through vivid description, I was able to comprehend and believe the character that was being described as a women that is unmentionably beautiful.

"... Her beauty was singular, volcanic, viscous... as inevitable as lava moving slowly toward you. Even those few lines in her face seemed as delicate as those left by a leaf's edge, drawn by a child through the sand. Her beauty was so close to vengeance- one exacted by the world upon those of us so ordinary, so weak, we can barely admit its existence"

However, according to chapter two, "Building character isn't about mere features or characteristics; it's about the underlying "why" that makes the choice of features or characteristics apt." Towards the second half of the poem she begins to speak to her associate, who is having tea with Madame to interview her. When she began talking, she started off with talking about the war and what it was like during those years. Then she spoke on how she had married a man that was sweet but stupid, which I'm sure she thought of feelings of regret she wanted to pure out but did not. I felt as if she put what she truly wanted to do on hold, which was to model and travel the world.

"And I thought, on day, flipping through those old pieces of hers from Vogue and Life, I'd like to do that!"

So knowing that she was married to a dull man who wanted to take a trip to his brothers only helped her with the decision of leaving him to pursue her dreams.

"That was that; when my husband went back to Paris, I kissed him goodbye and took the train to Tibet-Lhasa-then on to Bangkok, Argentina, Chile..."

By asking "why" instead of "what" for character development, I was able to understand her desire for herself to go after what she wanted, which ultimately helped her throw caution out the window. She even stated in the last of the poem, "For such an illogical woman that's the last 'logical' thing I've ever done," as she referred to leaving her husband and following her passion.

When looking at literature, whether it be a poem, story or song, identification of characters can be established more definably by searching for "why" certain characters are the way they are, what brought them to this point, instead of "what" can a character be or "what" you think the character is. By reading chapter two on character helped me understand character a lot better!