Conrad is described very similarly to the way most would describe Byron: a man of few regrets and pleasures . He is seen by those closest to him as, “[t]hat man of loneliness and mystery, / Scarce seen to smile and seldom heard to sigh” (I.173-4). While Conrad is physically a normal man – “in [his] form seems little to admire,” – his persona demonstrates that something “more than marks the crowd of vulgar men,” and “[t]hough smooth his voice, and calm his general mien, / Still seems there something that [others] would not have seen” (I.195; I.200; I.206-7). Conrad is also described as being able to perceive into a person’s soul:

“He had the skill [...] to probe [ones] heart and watch [ones] changing cheek,
At once the observer’s purpose to espy,
and on himself roll back his scrutiny,
Lest he to Conrad rather should betray
Some secret thought…” (I.217-21).

Byron is seemingly describing both Conrad and himself simultaneously. Conrad is more than just an outlaw fighting his personal chivalrous war against oppression, he is a part of Byron, and Byron attributes some of his most public personae to Conrad.

Conrad is the most “Byronic” of the characters in the story, but the behaviors of other characters also illustrate the way Byron inserts himself into his art. The story of “The Corsair” easily could be seen as a traditional damsel-in-distress story but Byron twists this: Conrad is the poetical hero, but he does not conquer the evil he fights and his quest fails. Gulnare must kill Pasha Seyd and rescue the “hero.” Conrad would rather allow himself to die than to lose his chivalrous beliefs, so Gulnare must step in and perform the fatal act of murder.

Byron presents Gulnare as a feminine mirror to Conrad. At first, she is passively and typically feminine, but in rescuing Conrad, she immediately shakes off the burdens of defined gender roles and becomes something more than just a damsel. In making up for Conrad’s inability to overcome his chivalrous absolutes, the more restrained he becomes the less she restrains herself. Byron could have reduced her role to that of a plot devise to allow Conrad to escape Pasha Seyd’s dungeon, but by allowing her to abandon her given place in life, she becomes the driving force of half the poem taking on an aspect that rivals Conrad’s own in importance. Conrad, for a moment, is almost the prop upon which Gulnare is allowed to grow.

Her transformation from clichéd former damsel-in-distress enamored by her rescuer: “[I] long to view that chief again, / If I but to thank for, what my fear forgot, The life – my loving lord remember’d not!” to vengeful murderer “That hated tyrant [...] he must bleed” illustrates her total change from feminine victim to something more (III. 270-3; III.319). This change does not illustrate any feminist sympathies on the part of Byron because in becoming something more, Gulnare emasculates Conrad and destroys her innocence: the “spot of blood, that light but guilty streak, Had banish’d all the beauty from her cheek” (III.426-7). However, even by raising a woman to the status of Byronic hero, Byron blurs the line of gender roles. His attitude toward women in general is seen plainly when he requires that Gulnare sacrifice her feminine soul as she attains a masculine superiority and in the fact that he allows her voice to reach a fevered pitch before silencing her; thus, placing her voice subservient to Conrad again. This is also demonstrated when Conrad rejects Gulnare after the murder seeing only, “Gulnare, the homicide!” ((An interesting note is that the rhyme of “homicide” with the word “bride” of the previous line forms the following couplet: “He thought on her afar, his lonely bride; He turn’d and saw Gulnare, the homicide!” Thus, it foreshadows his lonely bride’s death, and, in a way, placing the blame for her death on Gulnare and her relationship with Conrad. Symbolically, the death of Medora may represent the betrayal of Conrad’s spirit when he kisses Gulnare because Gulnare is his true match. Medora and he are in love but they are not really “made” for each other, and Gulnare is Conrad’s equal both mentally and physically.)) (III.463). Gulnare has emasculated him, so he rejects her seeing only the negative aspects of her even after he realizes that “she for him had given / Her all on earth, and more than all in heaven!” (III.529-30).

Unlike Conrad, Gulnare is not specifically Byron; she is a powerful voice for a time, but not entirely that of the author himself. However, she could have been: as her personality shifts from feminine to masculine, her personality shifts towards that of Conrad, and thus, comes closer to Byron. The Byronic hero torch almost passes from Conrad to Gulnare with “Conrad following, at her beck, obeyd” (III. 448). The balance between the characters of Conrad and Gulnare come to its own conclusion as, “He clasp’d that hand – it trembled – and his own / Had lost its firmness, and his voice its tone.” (III.539-49). The shifting personalities had already blurred the two, and with that moment they physically merged as she “sunk into his embrace” (III. 544). The two personalities become one as Gulnare leaves the poem never to return. The shifting between the masculine and feminine reflects Byron’s own inability to fit his own identity within the narrow confines of European culture which required that his own impulses be subservient to a specifically masculine personae.

The characters themselves are only one way that the Byronic personae infiltrates his poetry, he also uses the trappings of poetry to twist the meanings and intonations of the final product: his childe is not much of a pilgrim, his ode is more satiric than honorific. The final words of poetry demonstrate the finality of Conrad’s position: “His death yet dubious, deeds too widely known. [...] Link’d with on virtue, and a thousand crimes” (694-6, III). However, the final words of “The Corsair” are not intoned by the narrator or Conrad, but by Byron himself in a footnote of nearly 2,000 words whose importance to the piece is negligible at best. By inserting generic and unimportant footnotes into emotionally charged scenes such as Medora’s plea for Conrad to remain with her, he can control the way the reader reacts. Through devices such as the introduction, epitaphs and footnotes, Byron inserts even more of himself, but he also asserts his control over the reader by leading them where he wishes them to go.

The epitaphs are seemingly innocuous Latin quotes, but when one considers them in the context of the poem the epitaphs of “The greatest of all woes / Is to remind us of our happy days / In misery [...]”, “So as his dim desires to recognize?”, “as thou seest, yet, yet it doth remain” for Cantos I, II, and III respectively take on new meanings that illuminate the events within. ((Epitaphs were translated by Byron in the poem “Francesca of Rimini” in lines (25-7), (24), and (9) respectively for Canto I, II, and III.)) The first epigraph clearly foretells that Canto I is to be considered the “happy days,” and highlights the coming doom. The third illustrates finality: there is no going back, but the second is a little less clear. If one takes dim to reference the clarity of Conrad’s desires, the second offers a muddle. What one desires should be clear, but for Conrad and Gulnare, it is not so. These three epitaphs set the emotional charge of the succeeding Canto, but they only do so after a second reading when their connotations are less “dim;” thus, simultaneously spoiling the story for the reader and asserting the creator’s superiority.
Byron further manipulates the reader using conventions, especially in the form of verse he uses, but he wholly admits this in his introduction:

I have attempted not the most difficult, but, perhaps, the best adapted measure to our language, the good old and now neglected heroic couplet. The stanza of Spenser is perhaps too slow and dignified for narrative…The heroic couplet is not the most popular measure certainly; but as I did not deviate into the other from a wish to flatter what is called public opinion, I shall quit it without further apology…

As stated earlier, heroic couplets are almost entirely based on rhymes whose final syllables are stressed, and used solely for “heroes,” but Byron uses unstressed rhymes and uses heroic couplets not only for his vagabond corsair but also for his feminine heroine. While it could be true that these minor things do not illustrate anything more than Byron’s own artistic choices, combined with his disregard for most other conventions, one may see this as just another way for Byron to insert a little more of himself into his art. Byron’s art is entirely Byron, even when he mimics other poets, the poetry is infused with enough of Byron’s own personality that it is clearly his own work.

The multitude of voices that are present within Byron’s poetry can be daunting, but as one reads they find that the voices all come from a single source: Byron. Either intentionally or unintentionally, Byron inserts his many personae into his poetry – sometimes they flow together undetectably and others they create confusion jarring the reader with the abrupt shifts. The characters and the events are so completely “Byron” that it is hard to resist drawing parallels to Byron’s own life because at times, the poem seems to illustrate Byron’s past and future . While we cannot assume that Byron intended this to be so, the mirroring of Byron’s personality and life with the lives and personalities of his characters evidences a far deeper connection between the two than that of creator and creation. The tragedy that affects the lives of all of the characters in “The Corsair” mirrors the constant tragedy that seemed to follow Byron throughout his life. Byron’s constant searching for happiness was simultaneously defeated by his own shortcomings and the confines of society just as the Corsair’s happiness was impossible because of his own shortcomings and those around him. Through these and other examples, one can see that the entirety of “The Corsair” and other poems are not just stories, but Byron speaking through his many personae which are all pieces of him, but none entirely so.

Officer Soledad “Bullet” O’Roark loathes her nickname-and the notoriety it represents. She didn’t join L.A.P.D’s elite M-Tac squad to fight the Brass or make rookie cops idolize her. She joined M-Tac to kill freaks.
Freaks, muties, metanormals-back in the day, they were called superheroes. They had amazing powers, lurid costumes, and snappy names: Nightshift, Civil Warrior, Nubian Princess, The Giggler. They seemed to be saviors and gods. But where there are heroes, there are villains. When a clash of superheroes and supervillains destroys San Francisco, the normal human population decides it will no longer live like spectators at the foot of Mt. Olympus.

Superhumans are now outlawed and hunted by cops. But it isn’t easy to take down beings who are invulnerable or intangible, have super-strength or super-speed, or can throw flames from their body or telepathically control minds. The mortality rate for M-Tac units is nearly fifty percent-per mission. That’s why Soledad has customized hi-tech, unauthorized, very special ammo. Each freak has a different weakness, and her color-coded clips are designed to exploit every one of them. Soon Soledad is racking up a body count that makes her a legend on the force-and a nightmare in the freak underground.

But when Soledad guns down a radiant woman who can heal the sick, reverse catastrophes, and then fly away on great white wings, the cop may be starting the final war between normals and metanormals. Because Bullet O’Roark didn’t just shoot down a freak. According to all witnesses, she’s killed an angel.

After reading this book it is hard to find a place to start, but there are three major themes in this book if you know where to look. The first is pure racism and bigotry, the second is a warning against knee-jerk reactions (with broad sweeps towards September 11th), the third is more subtle and deals with when passion becomes insanity. The world that John Ridley paints is a stirring look into the human psyche.

After the destruction of San Fransisco by a super-villain, in a knee-jerk reaction the President of the United States signs an executive order declaring that any metanormals left in the country would immediately be declared personae non gratae (lit. an unwelcome person) stripping of their citizenship and their very humanity. Any person so declared is served with a warrant which, although it is technically a warrant for their arrest, signals their death. The teams of specially trained police (M-Tac) serve the warrants with the intent and expectation that they will be served to a dead body.

Because of the actions of a single super-villain an entire segment of the human species is declared nonhuman and treated as such. As is evident by O’Roarks second killing there is no burden of proof. After witnessing a collapse of a street and noticing that cars were held back from plunging into the crevice, O’Roark frantically scanned the faces in the crowd to find the one person who had saved the lives of many people. Upon finding a single person without a fearful expression she drew her gun. When that person turned to leave she followed. And when the person dropped their overcoat to fly away on golden wings, O’Roark fired her gun causing the metahuman to plummet to earth ending their life in a pile of broken bones and wings. This is a world where metahumans are nothing; even one who saved lives is considered sub-human. Although interestingly enough these same sub-humans still still try to help.

There are two lessons we can draw from this part of the story. The first is how deeply racism truly runs. The second is that over reacting to a catastrophe in anger and fear is easy, but dealing with the consequences is hard.

The second lesson we learn is that there is a thin line before passion and insanity. O’Roark hates metahumans with a passion; she devoted her entire life to killing them efficiently to the point that she received degrees in metahuman psychology and physiology before becoming a M-Tac for no other reason than to be able to kill easier. In the course of the story she finds a single person who is her soul-mate, but when he reveals himself (while saving a woman from a burning car no less) to be a metahuman she promptly attempts to kill him emptying clip after clip from her weapon into him. It had no effect on him because he was able to become intangible, but it fueled her desire even more to find a way to kill every type of metahuman.

Now one would believe that there must have been a major catastrophe in this womans life to have her hate metahumans as much as she does. However her vast hate comes from nothing more that wounded pride and broken dreams. In her own words she felt that “as a little girl they killed my dreams” because her hero let her down. She is a picture-perfect representation of a tolerated psychopath.

A story is the perfect way to handle controversial issues. In the U.S.S.R., stories set in the time of the Czars were hailed as great examples of why communism was better, but what the communist leaders didn’t realize was these great Russian writers were using their stories to poke holes in communism itself — a story about modern times and issues but set in the past is one of the best ways to get controversial ideas out into the open.

A story that is both a good yarn and a stirring thought provoker are the best examples of the art. Saying things on many levels is the reason behind stories, from the parables of the Bible, to Aesop’s fables, to the Homeric epics all were meant to use a story to help ideas take flight and form. Truly understanding a story does not come from Cliff Notes or what a friend tells you in the hall, it comes from reading and quite possibly re-reading each and every word. Not from just reading the story, but also reading the moral; not reading what the author says, but what the author is saying. This is the key to reading not just the story or the moral, but into the very enlightenment and wisdom the author is trying to convey.

Of course this is not to say that every tawdry beach novel is equivalent with the works of Dante, or Shakespeare but every good author who writes for the love of it — rather than the money or fame — leaves a little piece of themselves in every book. That little piece is the key to the understanding of not just the story but also the meaning behind the story.

A well crafted story takes one of two forms those that are thought and those that create thought. Those that are thought are those were the author is kind enough to tell you the story and then tell you the meaning. Those that create thought are far superior, the author does not presume to tell you what to think but instead allows you to realize it on your own, and in the process achieving far more than those who read and do not understand.