Civil Warland In Bad Decline & Vandals

Civil Warland In Bad Decline & Vandals

"Appearances are wants only on the surface, not what lies within.” a famous quote by Byron Pulsifer which accurately depicts what the characters in Vandals and CivilWarland in bad decline wants to become but are actually not. Each character creates a substantial personality to conceal who they really are. Both the characters, Liza, Ladner and Mr. A in Vandals and Civilwarland in bad decline shares a common ground but yet go separate ways to achieve what they want.
In Vandals, Liza pretends to be the opposite of herself. She pretends to be someone that she is not. She grew up in a family where everything fell apart which was the start of her corruption. “Her mother was already dead. By the time they moved, Kenny (her brother) was dead…She didn’t like college, didn’t like the people there. By that time she had become a Christian (Munro, Alice 276).” This was the beginning of her escapism by using Christianity. She starts to be a good Christian girl by following all the rituals. “She brushed her teeth and got up early in the morning to do knee bends and read Bible verses (Munro, Alice 276).” Later, her husband, Warren meets her when she was a dedicated Christian, but later realizes her disruptive side when they find Ladner’s house while snowmobiling when he establishes that she wants to trash the house. “’Shouldn’t we ought to take our boots off?’ he said. ‘Why?’ said Liza, stomping on the rug. ‘What’s the matter with good clean snow?’ Liza was opening the drawers of the desk rummaging in the paper then started pulling the drawers all the way out and dumping them and their contents on the floor. She made a funny noise—an admiring cluck of her tongue, as if the drawers had done this on their own (Munro, Alice 279) Liza starts trashing the house for fun and when Warren questions her, she answers, “Nothing that is remotely any of your business.” Her insanity surprises Warren yet he can’t do anything but fear and observe....