The Four Feathers and Aristotle, 6-25-2010

 [Continuing Linking Aristotle & My Offenses, 6-25-2010. sch 12/18/22]

I finally read A.E.W. Mason's The Four Feathers. I had seen the 1939 movie several times and bits of the Heath Ledger film. Perhaps I have had too much of Aristotle and his Nicomachean Ethics on my mind, but I am going to suggest this novel describes what Aristotle wrote about bravery.

 Check Chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9 of Book III against the character of Durrance. That is the character played by Ralph Richardson.

I suggest reading the novel as being more than a boy's own adventure. As for colonialism, of course there is that. It was written by an Englishman in 1904 - what did you expect? In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when did the British not fight a colonial war? However, how Mason treats the natives is different from my memory of the film.

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