My Name’s John Dowell, and I Care What You Think
“I have two faces — Blurry’s the one I’m not”
This insistent line comes straight from the new twenty-one pilots record. Blurryface has topped the charts for months now, and has pushed these two twenty-something musicians of an indecipherable genre into superstardom. This album weaves a story of a person struggling to differentiate between his true self and the ugly one that he tries to hide — the alter ego, the villain, the coward, the self that you have nightmares of turning into. “Blurry” is the name the artist gives to this hated, hidden self. The stated song lyric clearly states that two faces exist, thus betraying that there are two sides to the owner: but he blatantly refutes that this second face is not his “true” self. Both ideas cannot stand. If he has two faces, then he is both. He may have to conquer the demons he fights, but he cannot deny its influence.
A 20th century British literature protagonist shares a much more sinister dilemma in his admission of a darker self. John Dowell, of Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier, narrates the novel unreliably, with incessant, fragmented time lapses, incongruities, missing pieces, and ultimately, a terrifying trail of abuse and psychopathic tendencies. The man the reader assumes most trustworthy, as we are taught to view the mind that we alone see into in a story, becomes a depraved monster through close analyzation. He, of course, denies any wrongdoing, continuously states his own ignorance, and attempts to manipulate the audience into pity, just as an abuser would his victim.
This monster is much different than the one of Tyler, of twenty-one pilots. Tyler admits his flaws and attempts to purge them through artistic expression. Dowell refuses to even admit he is exciting or knowledgable enough to have serious flaws. He attempts to go through life appearing mundane and normal, narrating as such, glossing over violent details, as shown with his nonchalantly happened to mention his physical abuse of his black employee and the obvious abuse of the impaired child Nancy, at the close of the novel. He is a psychopath who doesn’t even know (or at least admit) that he is dangerous. His own wife locked the door against him every night, for various reasons. The monster lurking within John Dowell wasn’t as private as he hoped he could keep it.
There lies the rub. John Dowell was a monster disguised as a calm-demeanored, boring, normal man. However, other people could see into his facade. People were afraid of him. Throughout his characterization, his “Blurry” face kept showing through. He isn’t attempting to beat it, just to hide it.
After Dowell’s man crush, Edward Ashburnham, dies, John takes over his friend’s estate. Ashburnham’s widow Leonora remarries and moves out. John takes in a recently disabled young girl, and the story ends there.
If one looks closer, it could be seen that John is, in fact, trying to become Edward. As an American, he could never fit into British aristocracy, and he didn’t even have the temperament for it, even though Edward was beloved by the people and totally fit the part. It could be compared to people trying to resurrect the glory of the Victorian days, though they never quite can, since the age is over.
Land is still seen as power to many, and since Dowell is obsessed with power, it only makes sense that he would want the influence Edward had and would want to take possession of his land. It should elevate his status and make people treat him like they treated Edward. They wouldn’t ignore him anymore — he would BE someone.
The Modernist writer Ford Madox Ford intentionally used confusion as a method to trick the reader and make them work for any kind of closure (if there is even any to be found). The Good Soldier is a tale of public and private faces — blurry and clear, evil and not so evil, knowledgable and ignorant. It’s up to the reader to decide whether even these are real and if so, if any of these true selves are benevolent.
