Research the Power of Music in Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto (Essay Sample)

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The Power of Music in Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto
The novel opens in South America, in a birthday concert that was organized for economic reasons- to lure a Japanese tycoon Mr. Katsumi Hosokawa to invest in a factory that will improve the economy of the region by creating employment opportunities. In attendance, was supposed to be the president who changes his mind in the last minute but the party goes on because it was based on an opera performance, which attracted people from all various walks of life. However, the party is interrupted by a terrorist attack but the insurgents’ plan of kidnapping the country’s president to extort the release of political prisoners does not work as planned because of the president’s absence. Nevertheless, they continue with their agenda by holding guests hostage. After months of the insurgency, terrorist and their victims start forming unlikely affiliations; toning down the hostility inflicted upon victims. Anyone who knew this organization- the terrorists- had the unspoken belief that they were as good as dead (Patchett 13). The affiliations and collaborative routines between the victims of the terrorists are attributed to Roxane’s singing, which seemed to dissolve the lines that divided the oppressors and the oppressed. This essay will examine the power of music as presented by Ann Patchett’s novel Bel Canto. Music has been given a unifying factor between unlikely groups of people in an unlikely environment.
Music has been given the ability to reach people more effectively than words could.
Instead of using business meetings and other political or diplomatic forums to get investors to for the factory, a birthday concert was used to lure them to hear an American Soprano. Therefore, Patchett creates a perception that it was only music that could influence the rich, such as Hosokawa and the politically powerful such as the president of the country and other politicians and diplomats, to meet and discuss on projects that could benefit the local people. Despite his financial power and influence, Hosokawa is portrayed as a man with the greatest weakness for opera. He has been enticed to come to South America with a promise to hear the American Soprano- Roxane Coss- sing. Therefore, his greatest weakness has become American’s most prized bargaining chip since Roxane Coss is available at a considerable cost to induce Hosokawa build a factory.
Music is not only given the ability to gradually dissolve the hostility of the oppressors on the oppressed; it is also given the ability to transform hatred or division across different divides into romantic entanglements and/or collaborative routines. During the months that the aggressor held guests hostage, Roxane Coss’ performance gradually turned them into Opera enthusiasts and they started inquiring more about Opera and some realized they had singing talents which they had not realized before (Patchett 70). Although it could be argued that the aggressors’ dissolving hostility was because they finally realized that they could not achieve what they had come for, it is undeniable that Roxane Coss’s high-pitched performances had helped both the captors and hostages find commonality in Opera. She had gradually induced them to only forming affiliations with hostages, but also deciding “to take something else instead, something that they never in their lives knew that they wanted until they crouched in the low, dark shaft of the air-conditioning vents: opera” (Patchett 71). On the other hand, one of the teenage insurgents discovered that he had a talent for singing and became Roxane Coss’ apprentice and Gen Watanabe was romantically involved with Carmen, one of the female insurgents. As highlighted, Roxane’s Soprano was the main reason Hosokawa attended the party to hear her sing, but they finally fell in love during the months of insurgency. In addition, Hosokawa became the pet chess opponent of the leader of the terrorists indicating that music had gradually blurred the lines between the captors and the hostages as the latter decided to take something different from what they had come for.
Ann Patchett portrays music as a means of penetrating every aspect of human life including cultural and linguistic divides. Roxane Coss’ audience comprised of people of different nationalities, languages, and cultures, who had traveled to listen to American Opera. For instance, Mr, Hosokawa was Japanese and worked with Gen Watanabe to translate the world around him. On the other hand, the captors spoke Spanish and Quechua while the hostages were of different nationalities because they were assembled from a group of multinational CEOs, diplomats, politicians, and other 58 hostages fell under Russian, Japanese, French, Italian, and German speaking. Therefore, Roxane Coss’ audience was multilingual. In order to facilitate communication, Hosokawa depended on Gen’s translations to understand the surrounding and the captors appointed Gen to act not only as their secretary but also mediate between them and the multilingual groups, Although Roxane Coss understood only English, she was capable of singing in a wide range of languages to suit the needs of her audience. Unlike Gen’s translation abilities of only conveying messages from one language to another at one specific time, Roxane Coss’ singing gave her the ability to communicate to all groups of people, both captors and hostages, at once. Although she did not communicate semantics, her singing had the ability to channel and communicate feels, generating a universal sense of understanding that united the insurgents and the hostages. Besides influencing gradual blurring of the lines between the captors and hostages, Roxane Coss had also influenced the community through penetrating every house and life through her recordings. Therefore music is portrayed as an agent of change in a community because it mobilizes people in a more effective manner than any other diplomatic or political process because it appeals to people’s feelings and emotions (Goldman, 60; Kawakami, Furukawa, and Okanoya, 4).
Music has the power to transcend evil. Terrorism had the power to divide the guests and the captors, leading to potential harm but music evened the differences between captors and hostages by giving them a common bonding factor. Roxane Coss embraced and used the surface melody of her singing to obscure the captors’ powers and became a spokesperson for every group. On the other hand, it could be argued that she was a mere puppet because she sang the thoughts of those wr...