Essay/Term paper: Successes & failures of lieutenant hornblower from c s fores

Essay, term paper, research paper:  School Essays

C.S. Forester's Lieutenant Hornblower

In the novel Lieutenant Hornblower there were a few scenes were Hornblower
was a success and a few were he was a failure.
In my opinion the first success of Hornblower was when he used all the cannons on
one side of the ship to free them from the mud holding the ship. Another success was when
Hornblower suggested a landing attack on Samana Bay. The commanding officer agreed
with his suggestion, and they put together a landing party. Hornblower had the whole
attack planed and the coordinates marked. His surprise attack on the Spanish at Samana
proved to be a success. Once the fort was taken over he was successful in firing red hot
shot at enemy ships, even without ever using that technique before. Then when the
negotiation with the Spanish took place he had a brilliant idea to mount a nine pound
cannon at the upper end of the peninsula to prevent the Spanish from escaping. This
enabled them to turn down the terms of the proposal that the Spanish wanted and get what
they wanted without giving anything to the Spanish. These achievements made by
Hornblower is what later earned him the command of the Retribution, although his
command of the Retribution did not come until later when the war started again.
Hornblower had also had a few failures that hindered his successes. Among these
was when Hornblower was using the red hot shot to sink enemy ships. This was both a
success and failure. It was a failure because after heating the shot for a considerably long
period of time the shot began to deform. This deformity of the shot wouldn't allow it to fit
into the cannon. Hornblower realized his mistake after one of the shots wouldn't fit into the
cannon. This slowed their operation down but didn't cause a defeat to them. The situation
with Hornblower gambling is mostly in my opinion a success but it could also be a failure.
The way I think it would be a failure is that he lost a lot of his money and couldn't afford
some necessities. Hornblower also won a considerable amount of money and his playing
Whist with Parry led to the confirming of his command of the Retribution.
I feel these examples show both the success and failure of Lieutenant Hornblower
throughout the novel. His success lead him to commander of Retribution and his failures
were small and didn't have great effect on his outcome.