Compare Charles Dickens' description of Miss Havesham's dressing room with Charles Bronte's description of the red-room.

Authors Avatar

Monday, 04 November 2002

Compare Charles Dickens’ description of Miss Havesham’s dressing room with Charles Bronte’s description of the red-room.

In ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens, and ‘Jayne Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte, there is a description of a room.  In this essay, I will compare the similarities and differences of the two rooms.  The two stories were written thirteen years apart, in the 19th century.  In ‘Jayne Eyre’, the red room is decorated in bright colours, in comparison to ‘Great Expectations’, which is a faded white room.  They are both large, and ornately furnished.  

In ‘Great Expectations’, the little boy is narrating (first person narrator), ‘I answered, more in shyness than politeness’, this quote supports two facts, one that it is a first person narrative, and that the feelings of the boy are quite uncomfortable and slightly timid about the situation he’s in.  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, boy’, this shows that the first person is in fact a boy, therefore suggesting a young naïve nature in the story’s narrator.  This reflecting the reader’s view on the happening’s in the story, but more precisely the extract on this particular subject.  Like ‘Great Expectations’, ‘Jayne Eyre’, has a first person narrative, Jayne, herself.  The narrator in ‘Jayne Eyre’, is actually older than the narrator in ‘Great Expectations’.  The narrator seems less anxious than the boy in ‘Great Expectations’, there seems to be no signs of nervousness or anxiety in the passage of ‘Jayne Eyre’ from the narrator.

Join now!

Both the rooms in the two stories are parts of rich, wealthy, large houses.  ‘One of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion’, and ‘massive pillars of mahogany’ support my statement for ‘Jayne Eyre’.  In ‘Great Expectations’, ‘large room’ and ‘a fine lady’s dressing table’ also strengthen my statement.

Both the rooms in the two stories have been kept as almost museums, as if time stood still at one point and never restarted. In ‘Great

Expectations’, the room creates this impression from remarks from the boy (the narrator), such as, ‘No glimpse of daylight was ...

This is a preview of the whole essay