1. A) Read the above passage carefully paying attention to the choice of the

Vocabulary.

b) Examine the means the author uses to achieve a certain effect. How does he create this impression?

c) Write a description of a place memorable to you.

Character Sketch

The character sketch, like the description of a place, is designed to evoke an impression (of excitement, enthusiasm, fury, admiration, etc.), to express an attitude, to produce an essentially emotional effect. In the character sketch, the effect is likely to be somewhat more complex, because it is concerned with human personality.

The writer of a character sketch analyses the traits of the character and depicts them as vividly and concretely as he can. He does not merely inform the reader about them, but appeals to the reader’s senses and emotions.

The reader should come to feel that he knows the person who is the subject of the sketch. If he does have this feel­ing, the character sketch is a success. To illustrate this, here is a literary passage. Note the linguistic devices the author uses to achieve such a marvellous effect in his description of an old man.

Description of an Old Man

An old man in a brown bowler walked slowly along the path. His narrow trousers, in a pale brown whipcord, were cut in the style of the ’nineties. The sleeves of his long waisted coat were so tight that one wondered how his great yellow hands could pass through them. He was like an old grasshopper, left over from last year to shuffle when it could not leap. He reached a bench, stared at it a long moment, tapped it with his stick as if to require something of it. Then he turned himself carefully round, bringing into the spring sunlight, pale as a primrose, his dull face, hollow-cheeked and dry; the great orbits of his sunk eyes, the long nose fallen at the tip; his white moustache, of thin separate hairs like glass threads. This face expressed resolution and some alarm. A string of muscle jerked in the shadow of the cheekbone. Suddenly he swung forward from the hips, placed both hands upon the knob of his stick, and broke at the knees. His look of alarm became intense, his long flat feet jerked upwards, he collapsed upon the seat as if his body had telescoped into itself. But in a moment it began to rise again – the old man straightened his back, raised his chin; until, upright at last, he pulled down his waistcoat, settled his hat, and looked about him. He had now the air of success.

(By Joyce Cary)

1. Study the passage below and describe the impression Charles Strickland produced on the author at their first meeting.

He was bigger than I expected. I do not know why I had imagined him slender and of insignificant appearance; in point of fact he was broad and heavy, with large hands and feet, and he wore his evening clothes clumsily. He gave you somewhat the idea of a coachman dressed up for the occasion. He was a man of forty, not good-looking, and yet not ugly, for his features were rather good; but they were all a little larger than life size and the effect was ungainly. He was clean shaven, and his large face looked uncomfortably naked. His hair was reddish, cut very short, and his eyes were small, blue or grey. He looked commonplace. I no longer wondered that Mrs Strickland felt a certain embarrassment about him; he was scarcely a credit to a woman who wanted to make herself a position in the world of art and letters. It was obvious that he had no social gifts, but these a man can do without; he had no eccentricity even to take him out of the common run; he was just a good, dull, honest, plain man. One would admire his excellent qualities, but avoid his company. He was dull. He was probably a worthy member of society, a good husband and father, an honest broker; but there was no reason to waste one’s time over him.

(After W. S. Maugham)

2. Study the passage below and describe the impression Charles Strickland made on the author when they met in Paris a few years later. Develop the idea expressed in the closing sentence of the pas­sage. Compare both descriptions and write a few sentences expressing your suppositions concerning the great change in Charles Strickland.

I certainly should never have known him. In the first place his red beard, ragged and untrimmed, hid much of his face, and his hair was long; but the most surprising change in him was his extreme thinness. It made his great nose protrude more arrogantly; it emphasized his cheek-bones; it made his eyes seem larger. There were deep hollows at his temples. His body was cadaverous. He wore the same suit that I had seen him in five years before; it was torn and stained, threadbare, and it hung upon him loosely, as though it had been made for someone else. I noticed his hands, dirty, with long nails; they were merely bone and sinew, large and strong, but I had for­gotten that they were so shapely. He gave me an extraor­dinary impression as he sat there, his attention riveted on his game – an impression of great strength, and I could not understand why it was that his emaciation somehow made it more striking.

(After W. S. Maugham)

3. Write a short description either of an imaginary person or of one you actually know or have seen. Write it in the past tense, imagining that you have met him or her for the first time and are giving your first impression. Only a few details are needed, but try and select them so that taken together they can suggest something about the kind of person he or she is.