Violence In Hugh Maclennan's Voices In Time

In Hugh MacLennan’s 1980 novel entitled, Voices in Time, presents the outlooks of one through different times of violence. Conrad Dehmel, a professor, is borned and raised in Germany and he experiences Hitler’s reign. On the other hand, exists Timothy Wellfleet, a television personality, who grows up in North America and into national terrorism. Nonetheless, MacLennan portrays Conrad as a flawed hero, while Timothy is illustrated as being a villain. Both characters, born into different generations, possess a similar environment from which they grew up in, however they contrast each other. These distinctions are shown by their generation’s music, their personality and their relationship with others, which all links to their location and time.

As a television journalist, he has conducted many provocative interviews, and most the people he consults are known to be older than him. A female poet came in, and Timothy completely neglected her success and her work. Then, Conrad was invited, and Timothy was not aware of his relation to him, as Conrad is married to Timothy’s dear cousin Stephanie. During the interview, Timothy exposes all of Conrad’s past and he paints it negatively; he disregards the context of the past, hence the titled of his show “This is Now”. Midway through the interview, Conrad points out to Timothy that he is “too young to know what it was like in Germany before the Nazis came to power” (MacLennan 119). As Conrad comments, Timothy manages to cut him off and twist his words, by expressing that Conrad implies that the movements of Timothy’s time are comparable to Nazism. Conrad would often hesitate to respond and he would take a handkerchief and wipe the sweat off his forehead (MacLennan 121). Such behavior from Timothy transfer onto his personal life, as his relationship with his lover and work partner, Ester, is

This relationship that they have, corresponds to the Oedipus complex, where there is a psychic conflict between a father and a son. Although both of these characters have their issues, Conrad maintains a relationship with his father, as in the novel he meets up with him on several occasions. However, Timothy has no relationship with his father, only with his cousin Stephanie Wellfleet. It could be said that family is where the home is at and Timothy has not been connecting himself with his family, thus it corresponds with his issue on how he faces his relationships with others. Additionally, he abandoned two of his children. However, Timothy gets the impression that his father hates up, and with this in his mind, he keeps himself distant from his family. Nonetheless, when his father calls him to let him know about Conrad’s death, his father reveals that he “despises what you’ve been doing and you make me ashamed to show my face, but I don’t dislike you” (MacLennan 336). Nonetheless, since Timothy has been living in the present, it is towards the end of the novel, where it required a tragic death to occur, for him to be emotional and to become aware of his