Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Describe Jagger's work and home life. What is Pip implying about Jagger's personality when he says that "He seemed to bully his very sandwich as...

Jaggers, the most powerful criminal lawyer in London, was a man with a caring heart that was buried beneath the rusty pistol on his desk and the sword in a dusty scabbard laying out near it. His emotions were under lock and key and guarded by his heavy watch chain.


At work, he sat in a violently prickly horsehair chair and his clients, it seemed to Pip, were afraid of him (even though they were criminal) as was evidenced by the smudging of many shoulders against the wall. He worked in a gloomy office that was lit only by a skylight.


At home, there was nothing of a purely decorative nature and though Jaggers owned the whole house, he confined himself to three spartan rooms. The other rooms were ignored like the extra rooms of his heart, although Jaggers' natural goodness came to the fore when he arranged for Estelle's adoption. A central object in the main room was a work desk with papers, which was employed at night so that work was Jaggers' home life also. At meals, Jaggers directed the same cold, hard business manner to his food as he applied to his criminal clients, bullying his sandwich the way he would bully his clients to get the truth from them. (This is Dickens's testimony to the adage that you become what you do. Choose wisely.)

No comments:

Post a Comment