Love and Friendship
The novel The Alexandria Quartet is characterized by friendship and tragic love. The main characters of the novel who include Justine, Darley, Nessim, Melissa, Capodistria and Pombal are all friends and they help each other. The narrator and Justine are great friends for the narrator says that he anticipates all her falls and rushes to help her. Nessim and Capodistria lend money to the narrator because they are friends and they would like to help out in the bad financial situation that the narrator is in. Their characters are complementary for they depend on each other. The narrator and Nessim rescued Justine from a man in charge of a child prostitution ring.
Sometimes this great friendship in the novel develops into tragic love. For example, Justine and the narrator started out as friends when the narrator spoke in a famous poet’s convention. They later engaged in an illicit relationship that made Nessim, Justine’s husband very livid at the narrator. Another pair is Melissa and the narrator, they started out as friends as well for the narrator helped Melissa when she was sick at Pursewarden’s house. Since then, they later started dating and moved in together despite the fact that Melissa was in another relationship with the old furrier. This led to the old furrier carrying a gun and following Darley around in an attempt to kill him.
Existence of Social Classes
Social classes are very evident in the novel. The author when introducing a new character, first describes their social status. The theme has also brought out the behavior of people in their social classes. For example, Melissa and the narrator are incredibly poor. As a result, they borrow money from their friends who are well off. They have to work for their income for Melissa is a dancer and the narrator is a writer. Once they were in Capodistria’s debt and Melissa had to sleep with him (Capodistria) in order to pay the debt.
This is in contrast to the rich of Alexandria who according to the narrator were well known because of their wealth and social status. Most of them did not work at all. An example is Capodistria who inherited his father’s massive estate. He did not work at all. Instead, he spent his days at the terrace of Broker’s Club looking out and stopping women on the road.
This distinction of the social classes of the characters in the novel builds the theme of existence of social classes in Alexandria at the time the novel was written. It exposes the way of life of the people in that society as defined by the social class that they are in. For example,the narrator could not even visit the club where his girlfriend Melissa danced because he did not have the money, whereas Justine and Nessim could go at any time.
