Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall - review.

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Evelyn Waugh was born in 1903. He is not considered to be a distinguished novelist but his writing is notable because they satirise much that was bizarre in English society. His father was a publisher and his first novel, Decline and fall, was published in 1928. It is a satire on the preparatory school industry. It is in the style and humour of Charles Dickens. Evelyn Waugh achieves his purpose through exaggeration. He paints characters that are larger than life, just like Dickens. We also see this method used in today’s television in programmes like "Spitting Image" where gargoyle like images of prominent personalities behave in an outrageous way. The descriptions of some of his characters are the larger than life ones made so popular by Dickens. Mr. Fagan could have came straight out of a cartoon by 'Mac´; "sunken eyes, and rather long white hair over jet black eyebrows, his head was very long and swayed lightly as he spoke". Just like Dickens ' characters, their names often give us clues to their personalities such as Captain Grimes. In the prelude Waugh uses a matter-of-fact tone to describe the behaviour of the Bollinger Club. Dr. Fagan is the headmaster of the school. He is not really a Doctor; he just says he is to make himself sound important.

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He does not openly criticise the atrocious behaviour of this particular group of grown men, who seen to have important and responsible jobs. He does, however, show their really irresponsible behaviour at the reunion by telling us hat the Junior Dean and the Domestic Bursar expected them to become more and more outrageous as the evening went on and the fines they imposed would buy several bottles of fine port from in the cellars. It is extraordinary that Pennyfeather gets "sent down" as a result of this night’s orgies and no one seems to be able to help him, nor ...

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