Compare ‘The Black veil’ by Charles Dickens with the first chapter of ‘Talking in whispers’ by James Watson

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Keith Thompson

Compare ‘The Black veil’ by Charles Dickens with the first chapter of ‘Talking in whispers’ by James Watson

Important ideas and feelings don't die easily and even survive the transition from one generation to another.  Two authors from two different centuries try to communicate the same ideas through their books; they are Charles Dickens, from the 19th century, and James Watson from the 20th century. Both of these authors wrote a book that contains similar characters and ideas, the ‘Black veil’ by Charles Dickens and ‘Talking in whispers’ by James Watson.  How people cope when presented with adversity are the main ideas included in the novels.  ‘The Black veil’ is about a surgeon in 1860, after recently establishing a medical business is approached by a woman in a Black veil that asks him to save a doomed man's life.  The surgeon still not fully understanding the situation agrees to help but is in for and unpleasant surprise.

Different in storyline but similar in themes and ideas ‘Talking in whispers’ is about a man of 16 years old, Andres, up recently losing his father to the secret police, struggles to deliver evidence of the Juntas brutality, with the help of twins Isa and Berto, and is tortured in the process.  Dickens's London is an unpleasant and filthy place in writing this story Dickens hopes to shows this suffering to people and motivate them to take action against it.  Watsons Chile is harsh and sometimes shocking in an attempt to awaken people to the brutal reality of military takeover.  Both books describe suffering and the authors used this to motivate people then and today to do something about it.  I believe that these books are just as good as motivators today as they were when first written because the themes are still relevant.  Both authors are trying to say, “Stop this suffering”.

Poverty was probably a very big part of the suffering in London in 1860 where Charles Dickens grew up and Dickens shows this to us when the surgeon is walking down the back of Walworth street.  Dickens describes the street as  “not calculated to raise the spirit of the young surgeon” with “a stunted tree, or a pool of stagnant water”. He does this to show us the suffering of the “lower class”.  Poverty was probably the main motivator to write this story on Dickens behalf because he, himself, grew up in poverty and only through his stories did he get out of the ‘trap’ of poverty.  Once Dickens had ‘escaped’ he very quickly realize that the conclusion of poverty and suffering in the upper class was that it happened to someone else and Dickens wanted, through his books, to slap them in the face and make them wake-up, like the surgeon, from their dream-world and show them that it exists right under their noses.

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Similarly James Watson was motivated by suffering in the community, but alternative to 19th century London when the suffering is due to neglect, the suffering in Chile is inflicted by a totalitarian regime, a military government.  He represents this in his book as the Junta (pronounced un-ta, the ‘J’ is silent in Spanish).  James Watson is an English man who is very interested in Chilean affairs and having witnessed the brutality of the government was motivated to write this book, that themes the Chilean spirit and its resilience to being repressed.  The junta does not personally affect James Watson ...

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