Dickens used language as a technique to present his characters. Firstly Miss Havisham’s clothes had lost its colour, ‘once white now yellow’. For so long she had not taken of her wedding dress, and it had aged with her. Miss Havisham had suffered so much pain mentally, that it had begun to show through her face, ‘sunken eyes’, it is though all the bad memories were still in her eyes. The character had worn the bridal dress for so long that it had started to look like ‘grave clothes’, this illustrates that miss Havisham lost touch with the world and felt neglected. Miss Havisham was in a dull atmosphere, ‘no brightness left’ this also suggests the surroundings showed her inner somber feelings.
Through narrative structure Trevor was able to create and describe his characters. Trevor used a certain type of format when describing. Firstly he begun with the characters name and a short description, ‘Teresa Atty and was now Teresa Cornish, had a round pretty face and black, pretty hair’. He then followed on with their personal details, ‘and was a month and a half pregnant’. Trevor finally ended with the relationship between characters, ‘she stood in the corner of the lounge with her friends, Philomena Morrissey and Kitty Roche’. In my view Trevor had used this format, because he wanted the reader to be familiar with his characters, whilst reading.
In comparing the writings of Trevor and Dickens it is obvious that they both have different styles of writing. For example, Dickens wrote in a lofty way, ‘The frilling and trimmings on her bridal dress, looking like earthy paper’, this quote had been described in a highly descriptive way. Whereas Trevor wrote in an anecdotal way, ‘Their own two marriages, eleven and nine years ago, had been consecrated by father Hogan in the church of Immaculate Conception and celebrated afterwards in this same lounge-bar’. When Trevor described his characters he told us a short story about them. Trevor used language that was coloured, ‘small yellow-and-blue blooms’ this illustrates that Trevor was a person who liked bright colours. On the other hand, Dickens writing was more monochrome, ‘earthy paper’; this suggests that he was writing about a dull atmosphere, which had no colour. Another form Trevor used was a snapshot effect, for example ‘was a month and a half pregnant’, Trevor writes this and then changes the subject. Unlike Dickens who’s writing was in the form of panoramic, for example ‘natural light of day would have would have struck her to dust’, he gives us a wider view of Miss Havisham. Sometimes Dickens used immediate in his writing, ‘So she sat, corpse-like, as we played cards;’ this shows me that Dickens gets to the point, straight away while describing. But Trevor writes in a distanced way, ‘Agnes, in smart powder-blue, was tall and thin, the older of the two’ he takes his time while getting to the point, first he describes his characters and then he goes on to their relationship with other characters. Dickens also writes in an impersonal way, ‘…Fair representing I know not what impossible personage lying is state’, I believe Dickens had done this because; he wanted the readers to think that Miss Havisham was in an external world. Whereas Trevor used a technique, which was familiar, ‘Philomena Morrissey and Kitty Roche, both of whom had been bridesmaids’, I think he used this format because, he wanted the reader to feel that they knew his characters, even if they didn’t know them. Trevor wrote in an realistic way, ‘All three of them were attired in their wedding finery, dresses they had feverishly worked on to get finished in time for the wedding’, this is realistic because, some women do take along time to design what they wear on a special occasion as they want to look good and better than everyone else. Unlike Dickens who used an extended metaphor throughout his writing, ‘a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress,’ his writing was based on death, and descriptive language showed me this. Dickens used broad language such as, ‘I knew nothing then of the discoveries that are occasionally made of bodies buried in ancient times,’ this shows me that his writing is strong and widely descriptive. On the other Trevor’s writing is narrower, ‘Their own two marriages, eleven and nine years ago, had been consecrated by father Hogan’, by this I can tell that Trevor’s thinking was not wide.
