While searching for characters that exemplify point Two,
I realized that even talented writers don’t always fully explore the
motivations of their characters, however skillful their descriptions. As
a result, we as readers feel less emotional resonance.
In Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy, the narrator’s father Dennis Lynch shows what might be patterns typical at point Two — at best unconditionally loving, at worst compelled to help
in order to feel needed. But McDermott provides only enough of the
father’s history and inner dialogue to let us make an educated guess. For example, the narrator describes her father standing beside Billy’s widow Maeve after the family dinner following Billy’s funeral:
[He] would pay the bill and
distribute the tips and take Maeve’s arm when she walked out to the
limousine . . . He would promise to stop in to see her later in the
evening, just to make sure she was all right. He would shake hands with
everyone, thanking them for coming, agreeing it was unbelievable . . .
Although Dennis had been Billy’s lifelong friend, who helped Maeve deal
with Billy’s fatal drinking, Dennis' motivation for doing all this isn’t
clear. His behavior seems to reflect this character type's instinctive
responsiveness to others’ needs. He was always cleaning up after Billy,
whose excuse for drinking was the death of his Irish love, Eve.
Only Dennis knew that Eve had not died. She’d jilted Billy and married her
boyfriend in Ireland. Instead of this harsh truth, Dennis believed
lying to Billy would “preserve his innocence”:
The rest of the family would have to
hear about it, and Billy would have to endure for some months, maybe
years, both their sympathy and their studied silence whenever the
subject of love and marriage arose . . . better he be brokenhearted than
trailed all the rest of his life by a sense of his own foolishness.
Dennis’ unilateral decision to protect Billy is a clue to the down side of point Two, a form of manipulation that fosters dependency in others as well as co-dependency ("I need for you to need me").*
At the extreme end of this aggressive style of helping is Annie Wilkes in Stephen King’s Misery.
The book’s other main character, novelist Paul Sheldon, awakens from a
drug-induced sleep to realize his legs are mangled but he’s not in a
hospital. Instead, he’s immobilized, a prisoner of Annie, a former nurse
and—she repeatedly assures him—his number one fan. Already
ominous, the plot takes a darker turn when Annie finishes reading Paul’s
most recent novel and learns he’s killed off a character she loves. Who
can forget Kathy Bates as Annie in the movie version?
In her memoir Sleeping with Cats, Marge Piercy describes
taking care of others much of her life. She even financially supported
her second husband and two others in a ménage à quatre and bemoans how people have abandoned her when she’s needed them. Notice her emotional responsiveness in this passage about adopting two cats after her Siamese died:
[She and her third husband, Ira Wood] found
heaps of Burmese . . . in piles of rich dark brown fur cuddling one
another, except for two exiles: two big sable cats . . . Woody named
the male Jim Beam, and I named the female Colette . . . Jim Beam was
immediately interested and friendly, but Colette hid under a chair . . .
I captured her, held her and licked her like a mother cat. She was
astonished and began to purr. From then on, except when she was angry
with me, she was my cat. She fell in love that night. It was hardly
sanitary, but it conveyed affection and trust in a language she
understood.
Licking a kitten, the way a mother cat would, is a fascinating metaphor for a character driven to take care of others. Piercy’s examples of her motives and behavior also show how character can be deepened in memoir as well as fiction.
When characters boxed in at point Two become overly flattering and people-pleasing, they lose sight of their own needs. Judith Searle points out this quality in Mrs. Ramsey, in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse:
In Scotland for the summer with her family and assorted house guests . . . feeding them, making them feel valued, and using her superb social skills to encourage appropriate romantic matches . . . Mrs. Ramsay’s empathy is evident . . . she pushes aside her own feelings, especially her impatience with her husband. (Judith Searle, The Literary Enneagram, pp. 66-67)
We can be certain of Annie Wilkes as an exemplar of this character type, because its most unhealthy aspects
are so clear. Marge Piercy’s memoir suggests that she shares this
Enneagram point but is much more self-aware. In Mrs. Ramsey we find this point's strengths and blind spots in balance.
In Charming Billy, however, though we see Dennis Lynch as
the big brother everyone can depend on, we aren’t shown enough inner
dialogue or signs of motivation to be certain. We only have a hint of
the inner conflict that's characteristic at point Two.
If Dennis were more central and/or the author had wanted to divulge
more about his psychological nature, why would that matter? Because
readers connect with a character when they recognize some common ground, and this is made possible only when writers share their own dark emotions. The best-drawn characters are compelling. They create emotional resonance, a sock in the gut. We like or dislike, love or hate them.
By comparing Mrs. Ramsey to Marge Piercy and to Annie Wilkes,
you can see how a novel or memoir could even include more than one
character with the same motivations, each played out in a vastly
different way. These personality tips will be most useful after your characters emerge in your mind and on the printed page. It’s our goal as writers to create recognizable personalities without allowing them to become stereotypical, known to the reader and distinguishable from other characters by unique history, behavior, and voice.
* * *
*Whether familiar with the Enneagram or not, author McDermott gives a fully drawn portrait of the point Two character in the narrator of her more recent novel, Child of My Heart.
