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The reason for Tony’s life-long failure is his cowardice and lack of ambition. After graduation, he just pursues an average life, as Justine Jordan (2011) puts it “He is resigned to his ordinariness, even satisfied with it, in a bloody-minded way” (p. 2). He goes through marriage and porce, and seemingly lives a peaceful life. Although he seldom complains about his plain life, previous accumulation of failures and disappointment has made him believe that he is not capable of living a more decent and satisfactory life. He has no choice but surrender to his ordinariness.
The most dramatic and noticeable change of self-knowledge happens when he realizes his partial responsibility for Adrian’s suicide and other tragedies. Justine Jordan (2011) says “The act of revisiting his past in later life challenges his core beliefs about causation, responsibility and the very chain of events that make up his sense of self” (p. 2). Tony feels enormous guilt over his partial responsibility for Adrian’s death as well as other consequences of Adrian’ involvement with Veronica. Therefore, Tony’s self-knowledge shifts from a victim to a victimizer, even to a murderer. It is obvious that at the end of the novel Tony is extremely anguished when he discovers the truth. He will probably be tortured by a feeling of unrest and helplessness since nothing could be done to change the fact that Adrian is dead partially for his letter. Eventually Tony realizes that he always only cares about whether he is hurt or not, but actually it is his words that prove wounding.
Boyd Tonkin (2011) vividly describes Tony’s psychological change when he traces back to his past. “Tony looks back on the turning-points and forking paths of youth--first in comfort, and then with a distress that borders on panic as the time of his life unravels” (p. 3). Tony feels comfortable about his behavior before he recalls his malicious letter. However, when he recognizes that he once behaves badly, that his behavior causes such terrible and unchangeable consequences, he starts to panic. Jonna G. Semeiks (2012) thinks “Webster's life may be all silvered over when he makes his painful discoveries, but if redemption comes late in life, it gets there in time” (p. 241). There is no doubt that Tony should be fully conscious of his evil behavior and his selfishness, and he should make a full confession to himself. As Michael Prodger (2011) concludes, at the very beginning, Tony believes “Life would not turn out to be like literature”. The tragedy for him, and for all the others in this tale of remorse and unexpected consequences, is that it does (p. 1). Tony’s whole life experiences are demonstrations of his core belief, that life is not so wonderful like literature. He thinks he suffers from betrayal and failure which all bring pain to him.
An outline of the paper
This paper will analyze Tony Webster’s change of self-knowledge. The whole paper will be pided into four parts and each part will analyze Tony’s self-knowledge in a certain phase.
In high school, Tony regards himself as a pessimistic and jealous person. The evidence for his self- knowledge is his attitudes towards schooldays and family. In the university, Tony regards himself as an underdog and a victim. It could be proven by presenting his failure of romance relationship. After graduation, Tony defines himself as an average person pursuing a peaceable life. Supporting evidence for it is Tony’s marriage, porce and his attitudes towards life. The last part is the most important one since it analyses the dramatic change of Tony’s self-knowledge--from a victim to a victimizer. The supporting evidence is that Tony finds his responsibility for Adrian’s suicide and other tragedies.