Neil wrote:
I said before, I do think having *Avon* in the role subverts it quite nicely
No. He might subvert our expectations of the way in which the power relation is expressed, but he does not subvert the power relation itself. He can't, any more than the cowboy can stop being a cowboy and become an indian. He is trapped there. As are we all.
This is not true. We are not irrevocably trapped within our social and cultural roles. One's whole being is not contained within one's culture. A whole book by L. Trilling, 'Beyond Culture' is dedicated to this question and it proves very convincingly that there is a residue of personality, however small, over which general culture doesn't hold sway, and which provides a standpoint for resisting this culture. This may be expressed in one's interest in other cultures, other traditions, whose set of societal or moral values is different and can be used for making subversive comparisons. One can also reach beyond culture by resorting to one's innermost core, instincts and feelings, or to the simple biological facts of life: your body is not a product of your society, and it is also you.
(A good example of this is Orwell's W.Smith, who cannot compare his wretched living conditions with anything different in his experience, but feels in his bones and his stomach that everything around him is wrong.)
A lot depends on how much importance you place on the differences. The differences emerge from the particularities of the characters. The similarities are rooted in something deeper and wider - ideology. If you want to study the characters, then yes, you look at the differences. If your attention is focussed on ideological values embedded within a text (eg, to assess it in terms of its didacticism) , you turn to the common ground and ignore the differences. They're too distracting.
I disagree again. If you're looking for ideological values within the text you cannot ignore the characters. A lot of what an author is consciously or unconsciously trying to tell us is conveyed through his characters. A character may be a typical representative of a certain class or society if it suits the author's intentions. It is also possible that an author believes he has created a very unique character, but that said character is still stereotypical, because the author is not aware of his own ideological limitations.
Some characters, however, are truly unique, and cannot be reduced to their (or the author's) social and class background. Stephen Dedalus is not just another middle-class Irishman who lives in Dublin at the turn of the century. He is a very unique person who rebels against a whole range of social and religious dogmas. If you miss the peculiarities of his character, you miss just about everything the author is trying to tell you. Likewise, Roj Blake is not just another alpha-grade engineer or whatever. The author uses his character to express a certain set of values and ideas - the invincibility of human spirit, humane attitudes, 'dreams worth having'. Didacticism or the author's world-view are also expressed through characters and their clashes and differences.
N.