Archibald cronin

( 1896-1981)

A. Gronin was born in Scotland in a worker's family His sympathy for working class people was later reflected in his works. At school he took a great interest in literature. At the age of thirteen he won a gold medal in a nation-wide competition for the best historical essay of the year But his love for natural sciences got the upper hand and in 1914 he began to study medicine at Glasgow University His stu­ dies were interrupted by service in the Navy After the war, in 1919, he graduated from the University

In 1921 he began his medical practice in South Wales

where he came to know well the hard life and work of coal-miners. In 1923 he was appointed Medical Inspector of mines and a year later was awarded the degree of M. D. with Honours by Glasgow University

The publication of the novel Hatter's Castle (1931)

marked the beginning of Cronin's fruitful literary career.

The novel tells the readers about a family which is gradually being destroyed by the despotism and ambitions of Mr Brodie, the father Yet, the author neither analyses the social reasons for the appearance of such people as Brodie, nor docs he show anything of what he feels towards the characters and events depicted in his novel.

His book The Stars Look Down (1935) presents an entirely different approach to reality Cronin shows the

relations between the miners and their masters.

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The major conflict in the book is, as Cronin puts it, a social struggle that arises from the clash of "two na­ tions" The author's satire is directed against the ruling classes. The injustice of the existing order, the social con­ tradictions are effectively exposed in the novel. Cronin also realistically depicts the hard struggle which the miners carry on against the pit-owners. David, the main character of the novel, cannot be called a revolutionary, but his passionate love for people and his desire for justice make him one of the best characters in the critical realism of the

1930s.

World War II caused changes in Cronin's literary activities. He left for America and in his further work he dealt less and less with burning social problems. His later novels The Keys of the Kingdom ( 1941 ), The Green Years (1944), Shannon's Way (1948), A Song of Sixpence (1965), A Pocketful of Rye ( 1967) are not as critical as his works of the 30s.

THE CITADEL

In 1937 Cronin published The Citadel, a fine collection of portraits of the English medical world. The action in the novel begins in 1924 and ends in the middle of the 1930s. It is a novel which has not only an interesting plot but also fascinates the reader with its realism and vivid portrayal of characters. Cronin shows how difficult it is to be honest and principled.

The main character of the novel is Andrew Manson who

after graduating from the university starts working as a general practitioner in a small town in South Wales.

The first steps are always hard, they are especially hard

for Andrew who has to work on his own, for Dr Page whose assistant Andrew is, does not practise at all be­ cause of his illness. Hard work is no burden for Andrew but he lacks experience, he can't even diagnose his first case. Luckily Andrew gets acquainted with doctor Philip Denny who helps him a lot. When there is an outbreak of typhoid Andrew is at a loss, for he sees no way to fight it. Philip Denny suggests blowing up an old sewer which causes infection. The blowing up of the sewer is one of the best scenes of the novel.

Besides hardships and difficulties, however, Andrew meets love and affection. He gets acquainted with an

attractive and gentle young teacher, Christine Barlow

They fall in love and get married. Andrew undertakes

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a research on miners' lung diseases, and successfully passes the M. R. S. P examinations. But soon he has to leave for London, having been wrongly accused of vivi­ section. There Andrew, determined to make a career, is

unaware that he gradually loses his best qualities as a man and as a scientist.

Cronin gives a thorough description of Andrew's mor­ al decline: first, money becomes most important to him, then he loses interest in work and scientific research.

All this cannot but affect his relations with Christine,

who sees what is happening and tries to prevent his degra­ dation. However, honesty prevails in Manson's nature; seeing a patient die one day because of the negligence and stupudity of some doctors, he is born anew. He becomes the Andrew of his early days in South Wales again. But sud­ denly disaster strikes: Christine is killed in a road ac­ cident. The blow is a heavy one, Andrew suffers acutely, but after the catastrophe he begins to see and understand many things.

The passage below (abridged) taken from Cronin's

novel The Citadel presents a description of Andrew's thoughts about his first medical experience.

...As he went out to pay a call, which had just come in, at 3 Riskin Street. Andrew felt his heart quicken to the day. Gradually he was be­ coming acclimatized to this strange town,- primitive and isolated, en· tombed by the mountains, with no places of amusement, not even a cine­ ma, nothing but its grim mine, its quarries and ore works, its string of chapels and bleak rows of houses,- a queer and silently contained com­ munity.

And the people, they also were strange; yet Andrew though he saw

them so alien to himself, could not but feel stirrings of affection towards ihem ...

They spoke little, and much of what they said was in the Welsh

longue. They had the air, in their selfcontained aloofness, of being a race apart. Yet they were a kindly people. Their enjoyments were simple, and were found usually in their own homes, in the chapel halls, on the fore­ shortened Rugby football ground at the top of lhe town. Their prevailing passion was, perhaps, a love of music- not the cheap melodies of the moment, but stern, classical music...

... Now, more than ever, he appreciated how much his clinical work

meant to him. It existed, the knowledge, as a warm everpresent inner consciousness which was like a fire at which he warmed himself when he was tired, depressed, perplexed. Lately, indeed, even stranger perplexities had formed and were moving more strongly than before within him. Medi-

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cally, he had begun lo think for himself. Perhaps Denny, with his radical destruclive outlook, was mainly responsible for !his. Denny's codex was literally the opposite of everything which Manson had been taught. Con­ densed and framed, il might well have hung, lexllike, above his bed: "I do not believe"

Very realistically the author gives a panorama of me­ dical life, showing the position of English doctors and medical personnel. Cronin portrays a whole gallery of different doctors: those who give all their heart and know­ ledge to people, and those who make their fortunes at the cost of other people's tragedies. We are given portra­ its of idealistic doctors, such as Denny, Hope and others and, side by side with them, the money-grabbing doctors

Freddy Hampton, Ivory and Freedman.

Cronin's greatest merit as an artist is that his charac­ ters are typical. The psychological depth of his portrayal makes them come to life.

The language is not complicated. There are not many descriptions in it, but it abounds in dialogues. Cronin created highly individualized and memorable speech­ portraits. The chief feature of his style is simplicity and accuracy

I. How can Cronin's literary aclivily be characlcrizcd2. What

the difference between his first two novels? 3. What kind of doctors docs Cronin portray in The Citadel? 4. Which of Cronin's novels is lo a great extent based on his own life experience?