The narrator used informal language and some schoolboy’s slang but no non Standard English or non-received pronunciation. For instance, “I am a Judas!”, “and have it flogged all around.” These sentences are constructed in a schoolboy’s English standard and therefore Dickens did create the characters of his narrator really well.
The Boots Story is told by a person called Cobbs who is a gardener of a wealthy family. Cobbs told a story about two kids on a way to get married and how did he stopped them and this fits the narrator who is Cobbs well. This is because he is a gardener of the wealthy family; therefore, he had more chances to meet little Master Harry who is the son of Cobbs’s employer. As a result, he built up a friendly relationship with Harry when Harry is playing in the garden.
The narrator is an extremely kind person and he is friendly to little Master Harry who is childish. For example, when Master Harry said he was in love with Laura. Cobbs did not say do not be silly or some harsh things to him. Instead, he took it seriously and said good luck. This show his respect to Master Harry who is an eight years old kid is same as an adult.
At the start of the story, we could see Cobbs was not well educated. As an example, “What was the curiousest thing he had seen-unless it was a Unicorn, and he see him once at a Fair.”(Line 7, page 1, The Boots story) From the quote, we could see Cobbs is not clever and he used non Standard English. Non Standard English is a hint for us to know he is also not well educated. This fits the narrator because he is doing unskilled the work and we assume the reason for that is he is not well educated.
At the end of the story, Cobbs had something to say about marriage. “it’s a shame to part ‘em!” This is evidence for Cobbs’s opinion on marriage. It is unusual for him to say that because he is not married. In addition, the reason for boot is not married is he doesn’t stay in one place for a long period of time and his income is too low due to he is doing unskilled work.
The language for the narrator used was odd since the story is supposed to be told in third person view. However, it combines with third and first person view. Moreover, the narrator used non Standard English and Received Pronouns. For example, “they was so little that he couldn’t get his hand into ‘em.” As an example for Non Standard English, ‘they was’ and the example for Non Received Pronunciation is ‘em’.
The Holly-Tree is about a bashful man traveled to the North in order to go to America where no one knows him. During the journey, the weather was too bad for him to continue that therefore he stopped at the Holly-Tree. The reason for him to go to America was he was too bashful to face to Angelia who is his girl friend and he thought she loved Edwin, the bashful man best friend instead of him. This fits the narrator because he is shy and therefore he did not talk to Angelia about this incident and left at the start of the story. When he saw Edwin near the Holly Tree Inn by coincident, he discovered Angelia did not leave him.
He was a shy person and cares about formal and traditional manners. All the words he used were Standard English. Additionally, he was too shy to see his Angelia and his bosom friend who had taken away his girlfriend. Instead of talking to Angelia about this, he had chosen to leave without saying anything because he was too bashful.
At the start of the story, he said he kept one secret in the course of his life, which is what a bashful person usually does. In addition, he escaped from his failure, which means he did not want to face to the truth. Although, his failure did not happen but he thought it happened therefore he treated it by a normal shy person way, which is escaping from the truth without telling anyone because he did not know the truth.
At the end of the Holly Tree: suddenly, Edwin’s real girl friend appeared because they were heading to Scotland to get marry. He knew the truth that his girlfriend did not leave him and went back to London. Afterward, he got married with Angelia. He was as bashful as the past since he did not tell Angelia he made a mistake and kept quiet instead.
The Poor Relation story is told by the Poor Relation himself who is the narrator. The person has no name, which shows he is not important at all. Moreover, he is a pushover and failed in all different kinds of things. Such as love and business. This fits the narrator because he failed in all kinds of things and this is how a pushover is like.
The narrator said he lives in castle but in reality he only lives in a normal flat and forced to leave during daytime. He knows what is actually happening to him in reality
However, he chosen not to face to the truth. For instance, Christiana is after his money but he still believes she loves him not because of the money until the end of the story.
The narrator did not want to start the story because he believes he is not the most important in the family. He puts himself down and did not want to start first. This shows he is weak which fits the narrator because he is a pushover and not confidence with himself. In addition, he is a well educated since we could see all the sentences are made up with complex words and well constructed.
At the end of story, he made one good contribution to the society. Poor relation discovered John is a greedy and selfish person because he took over Poor Relation’s business and he borrowed money from Poor relation but never returned them. However, Poor relation did not even try to get his belongings back from John because he is a pushover and afraid of facing to people who are stronger than he is.
In conclusion, Dickens created the narrators really well by emphasizing on showing their characters throughout different occasion in the stories. In my opinion, Dickens created the narrator of the Boots Story really well. This is because Cobbs was doing an unskilled work and usually unskilled work requires lower academic qualification. From Cobbs’s English, we could see he is not well educated since he used a lot of Non Received Pronunciation and non Standard English. For instance, ‘gimme me’ for ‘give me’, ‘t’other’ for ‘the other’ are the examples for non Received Pronunciation and words like ‘ain’t’ and grammar like ‘they was’ or ‘he done’ are examples of non Standard English. Not using proper English is caused by bad educated in English therefore he could not get a job that pays him a lot. A Boots is not paid a lot since it is unskilled work but this position can contact with the children most of time therefore I believe Dickens create the characters of the narrator really well.
