Student Question
What are the similarities between Zorba and the narrator in Zorba the Greek?
Quick answer:
The narrator and Zorba share a love for human contact and sensitivity to others' needs in "Zorba the Greek." While the narrator approaches life with logic and a civilized upbringing, Zorba acts on impulse and spirit. These contrasting traits allow them to complement each other, with Zorba's exuberance balanced by the narrator's common sense. The novel highlights how their interaction tempers potential damage each might cause alone.
The narrator is a young English writer (Basil) who has acquired the Greek mining enterprise from a distance. He brings with him an naïve enterprising spirit built on “gentleman’s agreement” mentality that precludes acting on anything but logic. Zorba introduces him to a new set of criteria—acting on impulse, from the spirit, answering to the forces of life that have been eliminated from the “civilized” upbringing of the narrator. But both characters love human contact and are sensitive to the needs of the workers, for example, and to the “rules” of physics.” The beauty of the novel lies in how the two contrasting characters give their particular gifts to the other, tempering the damage each character may do without the other. Zorba’s external exuberance and joie de vivre, manifested not only in his gruff manner, but also in his self-destructive behavior, is ameliorated by the narrator’s common sense and ability to look to the future.
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