Characters
The main character, Isherwood himself, is a moderately successful author of fiction. He is a detailed observer of the filmmaking process and the gathering war. Eventually, Isherwood confronts his rather passive role in life with frustration.
He finds his only consolation to be dramatic personalities in his life such as Friedrich Bergmann. Bergmann is a loquacious and hand-talking muse for Isherwood. Just as Isherwood translates Bergmann's poor English into film script, Isherwood comes to understand the true horror of Nazism through Bergmann's fear for family in Austria.
As Hitler lays the foundation for war, movie executives such as Mr. Chatsworth stress over the timely production of the film Prater Violet. Ashmeade (whom we are led to believe is Isherwood's first meaningless lover) and Dorothy (the secretary) both fade into a cast of minor characters who fail to comprehend the truth of life.
The only exception to this monochrome cast is Lawrence Dwight, the chief film editor of Imperial Bulldog Pictures. Dwight sees life as a quest for efficiency through establishing patterns. He represents Nazi ideology in life and art.
Read more about this topic: Prater Violet
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)
“Thus we may define the real as that whose characters are independent of what anybody may think them to be.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“Of the other characters in the book there is, likewise, little to say. The most endearing one is obviously the old Captain Maksim Maksimich, stolid, gruff, naively poetical, matter-of- fact, simple-hearted, and completely neurotic.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)