Prose Assignment- Charles Dickens - "A characters description clearly shows the kind of life they have led and the person they have become"

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GCSE Prose Assignment- Charles Dickens

“A characters description clearly shows the kind of life they have led and the person they have become”

This statement suggests that in a story the description of each character gives some hints towards there past and present self. I agree with this statement because most stories whiles describing a character for the first time may hint towards there past using word play or threw what they may be wearing or doing at that time. Although, this is not entirely true as some stories may not hint towards anything to do with there past at all, you might say there starting a fresh.

        One author who does this a lot in his books is Charles Dickens. In this essay I am going to write about three different characters from some of his books where this has been used significantly, these are: “Captain Murderer” from The Commercial Traveller Short Stories and “Miss Havisham” and “Magwitch” from Great Expectations.

        First of all is “Captain Murderer” from The Commercial Traveller Short Stories book. As soon as the story begins it starts to describe what the character used to be like, it says: “The first diabolical character…”, diabolical comes from the Spanish word Diablo which means devil, this means that he has a devil like nature about him, cruel and evil. Another suggestion of evil is that he is referred to as an off-shot of Blue Beard the pirate, it says: “This wrench must have been an off-shot of Blue Beard family”, blue beard was a pirate and any typical pirate is usually evil. One obvious play on words is his name: “Captain Murderer” suggesting he may have killed someone at one point in his life. It also refers to him having very sharp teeth on a number of occasions, on time he is seen showing his teeth to a bridle, it says: “disquieting the minds of the noble bridle, company, with a very sharp show of teeth”, he is also seen by one of his brides having his teeth sharpened: “looked in at his window through a chink in the shutter, and saw him having his teeth sharpened”. Sharp teeth are for eating meat with which suggests he may have been a carnivore. Another point to prove this is that it says that he has cannibal appetite with tender wives, it says: “Captain Murderers mission was matrimony, and the gratification of cannibal appetite with tender wives” this also proves that he is a murderer (hence the name) and his purpose in life is to get married and eat them.

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        The second character I am going to write about is “Miss. Havisham” from Great Expectations. She is first introduced when Pip is invited to go round her house to play with her daughter, Estella. She is an old women, half dressed in a very old wedding dress that had looked as if it had worn away on her very shoulders, it says: “I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress……I saw that the dress had been put open the rounded figure of a young women, and the figure upon which it now hung loose, ...

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