I HAVE BEEN DYING TO TELL YOU Comment on the presentation of Jocelin in Chapter 1.

Authors Avatar

Sasha Bates                Comment on the presentation of Jocelin in Chapter 1.

              Dean Jocelin is a priest at St Mary’s Cathedral in Salisbury. He has a vision that God has chosen him to erect a great spire on his cathedral. During Chapter 1 we see many different qualities of Jocelin.  The first account we meet of him is a visual picture of a laughing man; this represents a joyful, exhilarant person. It shows that this is the beginning of his vision and everything is taking place before him. In the second sentence our view shifts and we see what he sees, the sunlight exploding through the glass, lifting up the images of Abraham, Isaac and God. Our sense of seeing through his eyes is strengthened with ‘additional spokes and wheel’. Each time the sunlight appears inside the cathedral Jocelin recreates his vision, and it reinforces the rightness of what he is doing. There is a various repetition of Jocelin ‘laughing chin up’, this begins to sound a little insane, however ‘chin up’ shows he is a very confident and proud man who thinks he has all authority over everybody else. He also thinks that St Mary’s Cathedral belongs to him, as he uses the repetition of ‘my’ this would signify, that it is his territory. ‘My place, my house, my people.’

Join now!

             The cathedral and the spire becomes an obsession to Jocelin as he describes it as a living, breathing building. He describes the building like a man lying on his back.

‘The nave was his legs placed together, the transepts on either side were his arms outspread. The choir was his body; and the Lady Chapel where now the services would be held, was in his head.’ He describes the spire as ‘the crown and the majesty.’ The great one of all!

            Jocelin seems to be a very religious man ...

This is a preview of the whole essay