TWO LITTLE BOYS

                                                   

PIP and SCHWAMM are the fictional characters that have stayed with me from my school days. One from U.K. and the other from Germany. Charles dickens and Siegfried are the writers who were successful in handling the delicate and sensitive issues of a child and his parents.

Charles dickens GREAT EXPECTATIONS, was introduced to us in our high school NON-detailed portion in English part –II. PIP is a character I liked very much for his innocence. More over the name “PIP” was quite appealing and spelling was also too easy than Estella and Havisham in the book.

WHY PIP?

PIP is a humble and loving character. The promise of a great inheritance and the failure of it are the theme of the story, and PIP is the recipient of that great expectation.

CREDITS TO DICKENS:

Dickens did not describe a child-he became a child for the time being. He lived over again his own childish days. Hence the poignancy and actuality of his pictures.

  The merits of his three notable studies of sensitive, nervous child hood- Paul, David and Pip- are universally recognised.  Here obviously his own temperament is speaking; but he was also extremely happy in describing children and young people of other temperaments than his own.

  In the striking description of the marshes at the beginning of GREAT EXPECTATIONS, with its creeping fog and flat loneliness, his language becomes almost a mist of words and phrases.

Siegfried’s THE NIGHT AT THE HOTEL is a lesson in our English Textbook Part –I. It is a touching story about a father and a son. In those days trains and buses are mostly used for travel. With a railway crossing, in between his house and school, he encounters an incident every day. Here in this story the efforts of a father are laudable. The Author highlights the responsibility of a father to fulfil the emotional needs of his son. The story was so impressive and most of the school children can relate themselves easily to the protagonist. The story revolves around a small wish and feelings of a little boy. After reading the story, and getting to know about schwamm, to wave in return of a wave during travel has become a habit for me. Even I included Schwamm in my poem “A TRAIN JOURNEY”.

https://bookfoodlanguage.blogspot.com/search?q=a+train+journey

 ( PROMPT: STRONG FICTIONAL CHARACTERS IN BOOKS THAT HAVE STAYED WITH YOU)

(This blogpost is prepared for Blogchatter Half marathon, August 2021)