nevertheless. The book has been never been out of print since it was first
published over a hundred years ago, in 1902. I suppose its universal appeal
comes from the simple fact that its story is not just a perfect blend of romance
and adventure, but that the two things are logically interconnected and even
interdependent. Without the love for each other of the two protagonists, there
would be no adventure. Without the adventure, there would be no possibility to
regain the love that was lost and had to be regained through the adventure. It
is a simple formula but it is a winning one. ‘The four feathers’ remains as
rousing an imaginative journey as it must have been upon initial publication. No
wonder it has been filmed so many times; most recently with Heath Ledger,
Wes Bentley and Kate Hudson.
The one emotion that ruins the initial romance, instigates the adventure and
should allow romance to blossom again is cowardice. Harry Feversham, son of
a high ranking soldier and himself waiting for his regiment to be shipped off to
the Sudan, is engaged to Ethne Eustace. When a telegram arrives late at night
from someone with friends in high places telling him about the imminent
relocation of his regiment, Harry, in what can be described as an act of
cowardice, resigns from the army.
Three of his friends, all in the army themselves and leaving for Africa, are
shocked by Harry’s actions and make their thoughts clear to him by sending
him a white feather each, the symbol of cowardice. When Harry visits Ethne to
tell her about what he has done, courageously shows her the three feathers he
has received. She breaks of a white feather from her fan and adds it to the
three others. Harry is devastated.
In order to wipe his slate clean, he has decided the only honourable thing to
do would be to travel to the Sudan incognito and convince the three men
through his actions to take their feathers back. Perhaps, he hopes, this might
lead to Ethne taking her fourth feather back as well.
The structure of the novel shows very clearly that both the romance- and
the adventure-lovers are never forgotten. The story alternates between the
happenings in the Sudan and Britain. The former features imprisonment, theft,
recuperation of things lost, disguises and much more whilst concentrating on
Harry and the men that sent him the feathers as well as many wonderfully
drawn secondary characters. The scenes in Britain stand in stark contrast as
we follow Ethne’s quest for love and honour; she wants to believe she has done
the right thing in breaking of her engagement with Harry because of his
cowardice, but whereas it seems she might have found new love with one of
Harry’s old military friends, the handicapped colonel Durrance, she finds herself
thinking about Harry a good deal more than might be considered appropriate.
The novel is of course steeped in a Victorian-Edwardian outlook on life, with
the British Empire still very much alive and worth fighting for. Nevertheless E.A.
W. Mason also shows, though perhaps still in a somewhat narrow manner, a
sense of curiosity, respect and equality towards the other peoples that are
governed by the British. Harry Feversham may have let the British Empire down
by not wanting to fight for it, he is nevertheless able to overcome his faults
through his own actions and the generous help of many indigenous people as
well as other travellers in the Sudan and Egypt. The idea that true love could
exist and will, in the end, prevail is of course completely in line with both the
grand romantic adventure that is this particular book as well as with the life and
times of its author.
film here
