Introduction 4 chapter I. The age of modernism

2.2. The novel The Fortress of the Cap. Themes and characters.

"The Fortress of the Cap" (1931) is the author's first novelAJ Kronin. The action takes place in 1879, in the imaginary town of LevenfordFirth of Clyde. The plot revolves around many characters and has many small plots, all of which are related to life.hatter, James Brody, whosenarcissismand cruelty gradually destroys his family and life. The book became a successful film.In 1942, Robert Newton played the lead role.Deborah Kerr andJames Mason .
Part 1
The novel begins with a little insight into the life of the Brody family, which seems to have James Brody keeping everyone under his control. The main event that triggers the novel’s events is Mary Brody’s first love affair with Dennis. At the beginning of the story, Mary, who meets Dennis from time to time in the library, was invited by her to a city fair. She unknowingly goes out secretly with her family and not only goes to the fair, but shares her kiss that night and eventually falls in love with Dennis, the results of which we will find out later in the pregnancy.
This incident of her unwanted pregnancy is the main plot of the first third of the novel, entitled The First Part. We understand that Mary is pregnant , and when she is six months pregnant, she plans to run away with Dennis. Although Mary was only seventeen years old, there were no legal issues with her marriage, as until 1970, people under the age of twenty-one typically had parental consent to marry. required by English law has not been applied in Scotland. But three days before Dennis takes Mary away, a strong storm rises and she begins to give birth . Mrs. Brody stumbles into Mary's room and yells that her daughter is pregnant and calls James to solve the problems. After his father kicks him in the abdomen several times and throws his face into the rain ( during childbirth ), he tries to go to a safe place. Mary almost drowned in the river before finding the barn where the premature baby was born. Dennis, who was on a train to rescue Mary, was killed when the train derailed and fell into the river.Thai RiverBelow is a retelling of the real Tey Bridge disaster1879..

Part 2
In the second part of the book, the business of hatter James Brody is destroyed. The rival company moves to the neighbor and attracts all its customers. This is partly due to Brody’s pride, as customers are turned away by mania for his superiority. As her income declines, her weekly salary will also increase, and my mother will be forced to make the most of the little she has left for her family. Her illness, uterine cancer, and the chronic stress of living with James Brody are accelerating her death. After her death, Brody's lover Nancy lives with her. She then goes abroad with Brody’s son Matt, and Brody is left with only her youngest daughter, Nessie, and her elderly mother, Brody’s grandmother.¹

Section 3
In the third part of the book, Brody forces Nessie to study hard to win a valuable Latta scholarship. He wants to do this not to secure his daughter’s good future, but to show that he is better than his rival’s son. Under his threats and terrible fears of failure, he continues to work on himself, leading himself to mental and physical illness. Nessie secretly writes a letter to Mary and asks her to come back to communicate and create comfort. Mary writes a letter to her father under the pretext that she has come to help with the housework, but her father initially refuses to return it. When Nancy finds out he left her, she writes to let Mary go back again, and she does.
The result of the rag is reported before his father sees it. Knowing that his opponent has won, he is afraid of his father and sends Mary to the pharmacy under the pretext of buying medicine, then changes his clothes and hangs himself.
The story ends with Dr. Renwick, who meets Mary, takes her with him and marries her.
In 1942, six Oscar-winning Miniver became the highest-grossing film in the UK, while the Gothic noir was Hat of the Hat.Lance Comfortand British manufacturing company Paramount came in second at the box office . Could the two films be different? While the overly sentimental Mrs. Miniver used to promote World War II glorified the virtues of the family and the strengths of women, Hat Fortress offers a dark, pessimistic, and vague look to the weaknesses of the family and women. The now-unpublished Hat Fortress is based on AJ Kronin’s first novel. Kronin’s novels became a fertile ground for filmmaking, and the impressive list includes: The Castle (1938), The Stars Look Down (1940), The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), The Green Years (1946), The Spanish Gardener (1956). ) and the Web of Evidence (1959). Dr. Kronin , who dropped out of the practice after starting his writing career, also created the famous Dr. Finlay, a favorite protagonist of the television program that aired from 1962 to 1971 .¹
The British film noir often depicts a man’s struggle to rise in the rigid class structure of British society, and therefore “Hat Fortress” is the perfect obsessive and self-destructive goal of a man as a member of the aristocracy is an example.
The Fortress of the Hat is a British gothic noir with elements of melodrama. The film depicts adultery, rape, suicide, attempted murder, theft, cruelty, and lawlessness, but the melodrama in The Castle Tower is delicately woven, with paternal wickedness and hypocrisy. deeply studies the nature. Gothic drama often emphasizes the vulnerability of women and the savage nature of men, and “Hat Fortress” fits this scenario. This is the story of Brody ( Robert Newton ) - a heartless, vicious, ruthless man whose fate is associated with incredible nonsense and pride. While Brody’s actions cause countless enemies, because this noir, most importantly , he eventually opens the door to self-destruction.
Brody is one of the most terrifying villains in British films, and although he is an absolutely respected member of society - a man who never breaks the law - he is psychotic, although his insanity was initially masked by the paternalistic Victorianism of his time. lsa ham. So Brody is not a criminal, but he breaks the moral law over and over again with open pleasure.
The novel, published in 1931, takes place in 1879 in a small fantasy town.
near Firt of Clyde in Levenford. Brody is a luxurious, proud, and vain owner of a local hat store. Grierson (Henry Oscar), owner of a home improvement store next door, laments Brody's influence: "Nothing will happen in this city without Brody's involvement. How is he ? Hatter, not even that good." Behind Brody, he’s a local joker - a man who built a silly house with castles and armor and over-expanded his bank account. Known as the “Castle of the Caps,” this home is a monument to Brody’s pride and joy. He imagines himself to be connected to his peers and, thinking he is too good to mingle with proles, enters the air and tries to say goodbye to the local aristocracy. Many of his peers know Brody to be very violent, but enemies gather around him. There are only two people fighting Brody. One of these people is Lord Winton (Stuart Winsell ), who flatly and resolutely rejects any family ties with Brody, and the other is Dr. Renwick ( James Mason ) , the city’s new physician .¹
The film opens at Brody’s heyday and at the peak of his wickedness, and in the film’s early scenes, Brody also sows the first seeds of his brilliant destruction. It’s the Winton Arms and local merchants and wealthy people gathering in an upstairs room to discuss funding for a doctor’s appointment at a local school. The problem can go any way, but one day
Brody appears , he rejects the idea . He is firmly committed to Victorian ideas and the education reforms in London are not important to him, especially if these changes require money. In this opening scene, Brody shows that he dominates and intimidates his peers without swallowing his friends. He has no detailed speeches on the subject, and the usual way to eliminate discussion is to dominate and control.
In addition to his arrogance, absurdity, hypocrisy, and cruelty, Brody has another weakness - his contempt for his brave boss, Winton Arms bartender Nancy (Enid Stamp-Taylor). Brody keeps Nancy in relative luxury and presents her with trivial things, while his wife and children suffer from his aggression. Praised, Nancy finds a job at Brody’s hat shop for her smooth ex-boyfriend, Dennis (Emlin Williams), and presents herself as a stepbrother who desperately needs a fresh start. Brody doesn’t have a problem dismissing an elderly, loyal employee to make way for Dennis. The adventurer Dennis doesn’t waste time trying to figure out better how to use Brody, and looks at Mary (Deborah Kerr) , Brody’s sweet, innocent, violent daughter, imagining him as the heir . Dennis also tricks the ironmonger Grierson’s financial problems into reaching an agreement that will bring Brody to a neighboring business rival. All of this is happening under Brody’s nose, busy chasing anyone who dares to say a word in his presence.¹
Brody is a disgusting bully with his peers, but at home he is relaxed and his family is horrified to hear his footsteps. His washed mouse wife (Beatrice Varley) falls into the status of a slave, and while he is sick and suffering, he constantly tries to clear his castle, intimidating him in vain and endless attempts to make him happy. When Mary asks Dr. Renvik to visit her mother and have her say, this plea leads to a bad confrontation with Brody. Brody prefers to consult an old specialist, Dr. Lori (Lawrence Henrey) , who naturally agrees that Ms. Brody is all right. Renwick, meanwhile, is diagnosed with advanced stage stomach cancer and offers to hire a maid to relieve his wife. As a result, Mary secretly ignores her father's order that Renwick not come to another house, and Dr. Renwick has since been forced to make a secret visit to Mrs. Brody. A long-lasting romance begins between Mary and Renvik. Normally, Renwick would be a good target for the shopkeeper’s daughter, but Brody chases Renwick away - as if he didn’t do it
“Good” enough for his daughter, but there’s a basic idea, it’s about more control and Brody prefers to keep Mary as an unpaid servant.
Brody’s son Angus (Tony Batman) seems to be his father’s pride and joy, and while he may seem to have a better life than the women in Brody’s family, he is ultimately his Brody’s heir apparent. The role of settings is costly. He is an unhealthy child, nervous, and afraid of his father’s resentment and ridicule at school. Angus struggles to achieve the academic success his father demanded, and is embarrassed when his father begins a recurring rumor about Angus ’bright future, which he envisioned as a peer of the world.
Throughout the film, Brody slowly sows the seeds of self-destruction, and while Brody is seen as a man out of control, he is also the end product of the unhealthy, ugly society in which he works. There seems to be no limit to Brody’s hypocrisy - his mistress fires a loyal worker to agree, but expects his customers to be loyal to his shop. He reports to Grierson about living beyond his means when he goes bankrupt. He accuses his daughter of "dragging his name into the" mud ", but no one has embarrassed the family more than him. At the end of the film, we see Brody’s hypocrisy as part of Levenford’s overall health, which only supports Brody’s cruelty and condemns residents rather than acknowledging that Mary was also a victim of her father. . cruelty
The camera focuses on Brody’s physical size, so the shots highlight her awful height and chest. Interior photos predominate. These buildings are a film that adds a lot of atmosphere, so most of the action takes place at Hatter Castle and the Brody Store. As Brody's life deteriorates, his shop quietly becomes unusable, but as Brody became his worst enemy and caused his own destruction, the destruction of Brody's property is literally and finally in his own hands. . Note that nature often reflects Brody’s dark mood or even his satanic plans.
Beatrice VarleyMs. Brody, who has played a regular role in British films, has played the role - it is enough to compare her roles in “Fortress of the Hat” with a smoky tiger to determine her range of abilities. Robert Newton, who played Brody, is best remembered as Lenki John.
Silver on Disney's Treasure Island. By the way, the accident in the film is a real disaster on the Tay Bridge in 1879.¹
Archibald Joseph Cronin, better known as the author of Dr. Finlay's Journal of Cases, was born on July 19 , 1896, in Carross , the only child of a Protestant mother, Jesse Montgomery Cronin, and a Catholic father, Patrick Cronin.
As a young man, AJKronin moved with his family to the house of Prince Albert Terrace on Victoria Road in Helensburg, where Patrick Cronin, a traveling salesman , lived until he was only seven years old.
After the death of his father, Archibald and his mother moved into the house of their grandparents in Dumbarton. This house is next to Miller's farm, now known as Willowbrook on Rodriding Road . To support Archibald, Jesse got a job as a traveling salesman and eventually became a health visitor. It was a difficult time for AJ because he lived in a faithful Presbyterian family and faced the contradiction of his father’s traditional Catholic teachings.
As his stories constantly struggled with religious beliefs and the idealistic integration of the modern world of science and medicine, it was an experience that played an important role in his later works.
This is best described in his book The Green Years, which tells the story of an Irish boy named Robert Shannon who was orphaned at an early age and forced to return to his mother’s family in the tiny Scottish village of Langford. converted to Catholicism. becomes a problem. As a poor orphan, he was caught between the anti-Catholic superstitions of most Protestant cultures and the poverty of his mother’s family. After a difficult start in his new school, Robert adapts and befriends two students he has loved for many years - Gavin and Allison. Robert develops a penchant for science while in school and is supported by his entire family except his grandfather to improve himself and avoid working in coal mines. Eventually he managed to maintain his Catholic faith and desire to become a doctor.
He was a very good student and his name often appeared on the awards list as a recipient of honorary certificates. Thus, in the first two years of his life he accumulated his services in zoology and physiology, and after his absence from the naval service session of 1916-1917, he served there as a test surgeon in the marine reserve, and he was a researcher. returned to conquer the awards. . Praise in Clinical Surgery and Systemic Surgery, with secondary certifications in Materia Medica, medical practice, obstetrics and psychological medicine.
It was there that he met his future wife, Agnes Mary Gibson, also known as May, who was also a medical student. In some circles, it is claimed that Kronin felt betrayed in his marriage. According to an unfinished memoir he wrote six years before his death, AJ May believed he had first treated him to champagne, lobster and strawberries, and then led him - a devout Catholic - to his bedroom. A day later, her father called to congratulate Cronin on her upcoming wedding, which was news to her because May claimed she was pregnant, which later turned out to be a false alarm. The couple was to have three sons, the eldest Vincent Archibald becoming a non-dominant science fiction writer.
He graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1919 with a bachelor’s and MB degrees, and eventually received additional degrees, including a diploma in public health (London) (1923) and its membership. Doctors of the Royal College (1924).
After the war, Kronin underwent an internship at various hospitals before beginning his first practice in Tredegar, a mining town in South Wales, an experience that, along with his childhood in Helensburg and Dumbarton, gave him a strong social realism and inspired him. .. in his fantasy.
In 1924, he was appointed Medical Inspector of Mines in the United Kingdom, and as a result of his work, two reports were prepared on absorption and first aid in mines.
From 1926 to 1930 he practiced in London, but his medical career came to an end. He was in poor health, had a duodenal ulcer, and traveled to Dulhenna Farm near Western Highlands Inverari to recover and write a little . From here he went to the Dumbarton Library to research his first novel. The result was a portrait of the megaloman Dundee Hat, painted in three months and published in 1931, “Hat Castle”. (Grandpa Kronin had a hat shop on High Street in Dumbarton). This allowed AJ Kroning to start a new and very lucrative writing career. The success of the book allowed him to leave the practice .
The 1942 film version of this book would also be associated with Helensburg, where the young lead actress played one of her first major film roles, Deborah Kerr.
Whish scholars have been indifferent to his books; they turned out to be very popular among the public and his stories caused a great deal of admiration in Hollywood. The film industry quickly realized Kronin’s potential and signed rights to many of his books, including “The Stars Look Down,” “The Castle,” “The Spanish Gardener,” and “The Keys of the Kingdom,” which became major hits.
In particular, the influence of the Fortress at that time was great. The story revolves around Andrew Manson, a young Scottish doctor struggling with typhoid fever alone in South Wales.
The film version won 4 Oscar nominations and broke all American records for Little Brown Publishing, surpassing the blockbuster “All Silence on the Western Front”. The film was even reissued in 1948 to celebrate the founding of the British National Health Service.
In the late 1930s, Cronin moved to the United States with his wife and three sons, who lived in Bel Air, California and Greenwich, Connecticut, and eventually settled in New Canaan. His books continue to flourish: in 1958, sales in America exceeded seven million copies. Kronin later returned to Europe and lived in Lucerne and Montreux, Switzerland, for the last twenty-five years of his life. He returned to Europe as a multimillionaire , and Switzerland proved to be an attractive country to live in, mainly because of its favorable tax regime.
Kronin became famous in his homeland in Britain in the 1960s, when the BBC aired the dramatic series The Story of Dr. Finlay from 1962 to 1971.
Based on Kronin’s novel The Doctor of the Country, the stories focus on general medical practice in the imaginary town of Tannochbre, Scotland in the late 1920s . The series regularly attracted 12 million viewers.
Kronin was the show’s lead author from 1962 to 1964. It was in 1964 that Kronin handed over the script to the BBC writers, sparking public outrage. In 1964, he wrote a stern letter to the series’s screenwriter expressing his dissatisfaction with the show’s development. The media covered the incident and contacted the press and said that Kronin wanted the series to end, which caused a great deal of public outrage. Thousands of spectators wrote a letter to Croning at his home in Switzerland, asking him to allow the show to continue.