Re: Structure

Charles Dickens (cdickens@RMPLC.CO.UK)
Mon, 9 Mar 1998 16:52:22 -0100 

My dear Miss Michelle,

  A problem for novelists of my generation - a problem in many ways for
novelist of other generations too - was how to hold our readers' interest in
central figures somehow equivalent to the heroes of earlier forms of
narrative, while at the same time acknowledging in practice that the
adventures of a strong brave wise honourable leader is not the only subject
worthy of interest.  Like many writers of fiction, as my career and my craft
developed, I grew more and more interested in central figures who make
mistakes, often grave, draw trouble upon themselves by those mistakes, and
from the trouble learn how to avoid such mistakes.  The question is whether
you can call such a central figure a hero.
  If you can, then Pip is my hero in "Great Expectations."  If you can't,
then there is no hero in the book.  Joe Gargery offers readers a moral
centre - a good man, imperfect inevitably, but honourable and principled,
loving and loyal, who steadily does the right thing.  He is no hero,
however, in either sense.  He neither makes things happen as a leader, nor
makes mistakes, discovers them and corrects them.
  This, my dear Miss Michelle, is one of those answers which in effect says,
"You are asking the wrong question."  But I hope it's none the worse for that.

Faithfully yours,


Charles Dickens
________________________________________________________________________________

>>======================
>>Charles Dickens
>>charles_dickens@rmplc.co.uk
>>Author
>>
>>Dear Mr. Dickens,
>Thank you for your quick reply. I nearly forgot you had also been a
>journalist though I never lost sight of the fact that you are one of
>English literature's greatest writers. I have another question to ask
>you: who is the hero in GREAT EXPECTATIONS? Is it really Pip or is it
>Joe?
>
>Yours faithfully,
>
>Michelle.
>
>
>______________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>
>

======================
Charles Dickens
charles_dickens@rmplc.co.uk
Author