Romanzi Room at the Top e Lucky Jim, Sintesi del corso di Lingua Inglese

Scarica Romanzi Room at the Top e Lucky Jim e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! Room at the top Dichotomies There are important dichotomies regarding the novel ‘’Room at the Top’’. -TOP vs BOTTOM -DUFTON vs WARLEY (towns, so places) -NATURE vs CITY -ALICE vs SUSAN> She is the daughter of the richest man in town. She is old and becomes Joe’s lover -REALITY (sometimes it seems to read a Dickens’ novel vs FANTASY (there’s references to fairytales) -REGIONAL (dialect) vs STANDARD (english) -LIFE vs DEATH> the main character lost his parents during the war, their house was bombed. There are also references to zombies. The title > Room at the top. Here the word ‘top’ regards 2 aspects. 1 > physical issue > we refer to the top of the social class, so the social structure debates that takes place in the novel. The main character Joe wants to climb the social ladder 2 > place > the word top also refers to the apartment Joe, the main character, rents at the top on the hillside where British houses usually have 3 floors. Notions regarding the book> This is a text written by John Braine. There are those who say that this text is very autobiographical, there are some similarity between the author’s life and the main character because they are working class and they both are related to the second world war. The author John Braine managed to study while he was a prisoner, so he improved in terms of education. This book is very realistic. The author didn’t want to apply any notions or theory to the content, but he simply said that ‘’if you want to analyze a character the physical description may help in providing an overall impression. Some authors suggested that we can find some sort of metaphors> we can identify specific topics that may be seen as metaphors behind the story. Chapter 1 -The main character Joe Lampton, 25 years old and of working class background from the industrial town of Dufton, moves from his hometown (Dufton) to start a new job as an accountant with the Municipal Treasury in the Yorkshire market town of Warley. This for him was one chance in his life to start planning the social ladder to move away from this working class background to become a member of the middle class. Realism is the gray of the … stone > gray just like the sky described. -Also at the beginning of the novel there’s references to zombies. The main character describes this term to describe people around him, specially in Dufton. We can recall the dichotomy life and death. Zombies are death. -In this chapter Joe is living an hangover because he had drunk the night before. There’s also details about clothing so it is related to Realism. He was wearing his best outfit (he does a comparison between what he was wearing that day and what he used to wear 10 years ago as a member of the working class) because he was going to a new town to start a new job. He was naif. -Mrs Thompsons is a lady the one who ranted a room to Joe. That’s why he lodges with the Thompsons. Joe provides many details about the place feeling disconfort. -So he leaves Dufton in a hangover but as soon as he steps outside the railway station the whether is much better than it was when he left his town. So what is happening outside may be a reflection of what is going on inside himself > hangover, too much alcohol. So this bad feeling diminishes outside, we can remember the dichotomy between nature and city. So the idea that nature can give fresh clean air unlike Dufton, an industrial town where we find members of the working class. Chapter 3 -The coffee had the same color as the coffee cup he used in the morning, like a yellow. -Reading the books sometimes it’s very much like a documentary, there’s a lot of description like for example the kitchen in chapter 3> This seems to be a typical middle class kitchen of that time with nothing wrong like no stopped up sinks for example. Language use (so standard varieties, dialects, what happens?) Pag 180 > it’s about dialect areas in England which are> -North east -Central North The story of Room at the Top is set somewhere in the north – east and Central North. There’s reference also to the area around London which is ‘’Home counties’’. We can find many references to the use of language because there are comments by the narrator about language use. Pag 9 (2 or 3 pages of the 1 st chapter) ‘’She spoke well’’. Yorkshire =where the story is set. -There’s one reference that is about Joe Lampton’s land lady Mrs Thompson. -There’s references about the differences about Warley and Dufton. In this passage we have what he says about his land lady. Chapter 8 Susan =She is a teenager, she’s 19teen year old daughter of a wealthy businessman and she uses the language that a young teenager would use at that time. She uses specific adjectives, words, phrases of young people of her age, her idiolect. Chapter 16 Here he says that Susan uses some kind of Susanism > expression that regards the language Susan uses. Let’s see what they say in the text about using standard language. We know that the main character was from this Working class so most of the time he would use dialect, but since he moves to another town he tries using standard english so proper pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary > he wants to climb the social ladder. Chapter 6 pag 49 He talks about other characters in the story and of course he is always making comparison between his background and that of other people he meets. Ape= scimmiottare > so he says that people were trying to use standard english to ‘’ape their betters’’. Chapter 7 Pag 60 They are talking about one of their friends. Here we find reference of the way this person speaks > so again how language is used. Chapter 16 The narrator comments > trova il nome del club> put on airs =darsi delle arie In this passage we can read that people from the upper social classes, specially men, when they hear somebody using standard forms they think that there is something suspicious. Chapter 28 This is something that takes places in the ladders for conservative club (controlla il nome su libro) and he’s talking about the members of the club including Mr Brown who is Susan’s father. There is a very realistic and detailed description of the place. Then he adds that ‘there was unspoilt countryside but then the Council cut down and surrounded it with barbed wire (filo spinato). -Then we have ‘broken spirited’ > ‘morale a pezzi’ -Even wen full employment came there was still an atmosphere of poverty...fears’ > people were still complaining, suffering. -There’s reference to politics, to the political situation. -Hampstead is an affluent neighborhood located in North London. So it is a rich area of London. The irony is that the labour MP= members of parliament lives there. So it is the local representative. La prof inizia a fare domande a caso> Political system in London = Constitutional Monarchy and there are mainly two political parties. Of course there are other parties but in particular in England we have the ‘First past the post system’= The candidate who wins the most votes in each constituency is elected. their first preference, voters may then choose to express further preferences for as many, or as few, candidates as they wish. The count begins by allocating votes in line with first preferences. -’i voted.. amounted to liking ’ text in brackets > so he voted labour and this labour representative lives in a wealthy area in London, but he voted accidentally and not because he was fully convinced of the labour propaganda. He was basically for things that were more closely related to his life, so personal issues because he lost his parents so he decided to vote for somebody that his parents would have liked to vote. We can also notice how Mother and Father are spelled with the capital M and F. -And he was against the Tory candidate who was the owner of a big factory> he says ‘’I was.. any way’’ >they didn’t need any extra help, they were already lucky enough, so they didn’t need political support in their daily management for their success, they already had it. They already had people who supported them. ‘’...amouted to’ > means that ‘sarebbe equivalso’, so amout doesn’t refer to an amount, quantity. p34> ‘’Mr Thompson’s voice..’’ So a friend of he’s was sitting on his knees. Here we fid a reference regarding the dichotomy ‘’life and death’’ >when he says ‘’Dufton was dead, dead, dead, so Dufton is associated with death. After ‘’Dante and Beatrice’’ > the reference here is presumably to Susan’s Father > Mr Brown , so the richest man in town. In this passage Bob is making fun of Mrs Thompson. He describes this man as hard and unapproachable, ‘’caring only for money and power but sometimes, sitting alone in his Georgian mansion right at T’Top he remembers that winsome little girl (>so attractive) … and flinty (>selce) eyes’’. > The Top is the area where the riches families lives in Warley. There’s reference to dante and Beatrice so there’s reference to fiction, also there are other references to fiction and fairytales and fiction of course is also Theater (so the stage of it). p35> ‘’The theater had a facade…’’ We can see the details where the theater is described, so we read information not only about what happens there but also information regarding the place physically. ‘’Stalag 1000 at the time ..’’>because he (the main character) was a prisoner during the war. ‘’There was nothing out of the ordinary..’’ > there was nothing extraordinary or amazing about this play’’ pag 36 > ‘’..tears’’ he is admitting, revealing what his ambitions are, he wants to be part of the upper class. ‘’She was the youngest daughter.. Warley Clarion put it’’ we have reference to Susan. Warley Clarion put it > so he read a review of the show. Put it= refers to ‘’to state, comment’’ . ‘’She had a young fresh voice.. school’’ > Reference to the physical description regarding the way she speaks. “...Sylvia’s cafè’’> up to here we know very well what she’s like, we have the physical description Chapter 3 pag 23 ‘’I went out into the Eagle Road..’’> Here there’s a passage where we see that Joe realizes that the Thompson’s house is not really the actual Top of the house, of course it’s on the hillside, but is not exactly where the riches family live. Pag 38 > “Susan Brown’s very beautiful, I said..” he manages to meet her after the show. ‘calf’> vitellino, so he wants to say that he seemed naive, infatuated.. he also adds that he blushed saying that. pag 39> ‘’She’s not engaged.. ‘’ he is talking about Susan to his friends. They say to catch an eye on Jack Wales because he has a lot of money and was also in the R.A.F. so in the army. He was the son of a wealthy family. ‘’The dressing room..’’ > many details. There’s a lot of references regarding what he smells. So we can imagine this young woman sitting at the dressing table taking her makeup off. ‘’how white and delicate her skin was’> she represents youth. ‘’her hand was childishly warm..’’> this is one of the times in which he says that she behave like a child. ‘’zombie habits’’ > here there’s reference to the zombies. Zombies are the people living in Dufton, living dead because they don’t really have an extraordinary life. So he is trying not to behave like one of them. And specifically like somebody who is holding the hand of a woman trying to get more from her. Also he realizes that this is no longer something that he can afford to do in Warley but member of the upper class can. That would inappropriate from him in that context, that is not the way to behave > ‘’ineffectual habits’’ > means that this behaviors wont work, they are ineffective. Pag 39-40> ‘’I’m not awfully good ..when she felt shy’’> she’s not mature unlike Alice. ‘’Her blouse..supper’’> So Jack is not really her fiancè but there’s something going on between them. Cyclorama >’’a circular picture of a 360° scene, viewed from inside’’. ‘’You’re horrid..straightaway’’ > because he could already imagine how he would look like. ‘’..entitled to’’> commissioned officer is a paid officer with higher rank in the army, so not just in real life but also in the army he was high in the hierarchy. So there were things that commissioned officers could do like having specific kind of mustache (mustache that not everyone could have, it would be inappropriate). So clearly he is attracted physically to Susan also because because he perceives that she can be his passport to reach success. She is the daughter of the richest man of the town. Chapter 8 pag 73> ‘’Are you enjoying the show ..’’ Because of his ambitions we can say that when he his with Susan he is always pretending he is somebody else, so there’s a sort of dichotomy between intelligence and unconscience. He’s always behaving in a way that he is not what he is really thinking in a specific situation. ‘’..silly’’ > she’s being childish in a way. ‘’..I can’t put is as well as you’’ > I cant express what I want to say just like you do’’. ‘’Fonteyn’’> famous dancer ‘’The cafè was..anyway’’ pag 74> ‘’woolman’’ = from the world of the textile industry. ‘’But I always..cafè’’ > so he wants to show that he can be part of that world. ‘’In fact.. careful’’ 74-75>this refers to the usage of Standard english or dialect so refers to ‘’putting on air’’. ‘’..enemies’’> people that are in your same group can’t be your enemies. ‘’..false move’’> he felt under scrutiny because he was new, he was just an accountant for the local municipality not a landowner or factory owner. ‘’It’s queer..’’> he is talking about things that had taking place about 10 years ago. ‘’She was my passport..’’> lasciapassare , a key that allowed him to enter in the upper class because she was part of it. ‘’All Dickensy’’ > reference to Dickens regarding people he could see with physical features that could be found in characters from Dickens’ novels. ‘’..Joe’’> her teenage language. ‘’She kept on looking..’’ > There are other references to how she behave, she’s a bit naive, young. pag 77 ‘’Don’t you miss your father..’’> queer = strange. He’s admitting that he is having this sort of ambiguous behavior. ‘’I felt guilty. I was manoeuvring for position’’> he was using tactics to climb the social ladder. ‘’noting the effect of each word’’> he is never 100% real, this has to do also with the relationship he has with Alice. ‘’and it seemed to devalue.. said’’> even if he says that ‘’it was perfectly truth’’ in that context everything was said to take effect so all he said it looked like something ambiguous, like he was still lying. pag 130 ‘’After supper the floor was..’’ >Here we can read the physical description. ‘’(I thought of Alice…) child’’> here we have the comparison between Alice and Susan. So the reference to Alice as an old woman, or at least a woman getting old that’s why he says ‘’hands already on the verge of boniness’’= so bony, he also adds that the nails were not painted, there were white spots instead. While Susan is a naive, spontaneous child. Nature vs City Regarding the dichotomy between nature and city, it’s important to mention that the importance of nature has reflections in the two woman. Nature also meaning the ‘’old very nature’’ of a person, so the personality and feelings. So nature is associated with true feelings, true passion. Susan is city child. When He is Susan nature looks like something more architecture, so not real nature. They decide to visit Benton. pag 134 So ‘’ Benton used to be…’’ > so they are visiting a natural setting that is not really so natural as some other places that he visits with Alice. ‘’Susan took my arm..’’> so the trees looked like ‘’soldiers lined up’’, so not something natural. ‘’I unbuttoned… party’’ pag 135> so her skirt had lifted up and she automatically pushed it down. So this represents Susan’s sense of decorum. She is a decent, young girl. ‘’Now you’re really frightening me..’’ > So we have again a reference to fairytales, so she feels like Little Red Riding Hood and he is the Wolf Then again because of pieces of dramatic irony we can say that there are some signals through the story regarding Joe hurting Alice. One is page> Chapter 11 pag 105> Here we have Joe and Elspeth speaking ‘’Lovely dear..heart of gold’’ then ‘’She blew me a kiss..Do you love Alice (Elspeth) says don’t hurt her.. with my stolen you’’ >so here we have the idea of stories, fiction etc.. ‘’But at the end of the day that’s what he does..he hurt her’’ Of course, he new that that’s not really what he could afford so to have both Alice and Susan. Joe is the new accountant in the town and there are some of his collegues, his supervivors riminding him that he has to behave carefully, specially while dealing with Mr Brown’s daughter. After a while he has met Mr Brown in party. Then we have a passage in which Joe meets Mr Brown> Chapter 28 pag 206 Cutlery= posate. Here we have a conversation between Joe and Mr Brown. We can see an isocronic structure > one.. one.. one.. > three monosyllabic words. Game = selvaggina The conversation concerns sort of a Job offer. Mr Brown has understood that he is an ambitious person. Mr Brown tries to set a trap (in the text we meet catch =trappola) for him offering Joe an interesting Job on the condition of leaving Susan. Then Joe asks if he has to leave Warley too, Mr Browns agrees threatening him saying that things can get worst for him. It is trying to test him. Also at the end Joe mange to convince Susan’s father, he understood what he was trying to, and he didn’t want to take the risk of showing who he was with Susan behaving differently. So he behaved until the very end to be successful. Joe and his relationship with the people belonging to the same or lower social class> He is ambitious but he also works very hard so he is not trying to climb the social ladder just by relying exclusively on Susan. Mr Brown also admits that he is a clever, hard working guy. He is not really even exploiting his position with peers (people with the same social background). Chapter 28 pag 200> This is a conversation between Joe and Rey (controlla se il nome è giusto) who is Joe’s supervisor> ‘’I looked at Grey.. if you do one thing out of line’’ basically he is trying to say that His supervisor was doing something he wasn’t supposed to do. Reference system = le referenze ‘’...I was the judge and the ..out he went.. shoes..me I shut the books with..face’’ safe= cassaforte went over this=go over something= to verify, check something figures= cifre Regarding Rey> ‘his red and blue hand with … mine’=there’s a lot of details> we can imagine him as one who bites his nails. ‘shoes.. me’’> he had a certain behavior, certain looking, nails, shoes etc that was almost slovenly. Rey hided something and Joe told him ‘’you knew it would have been fond out’’. ‘don’t tell on me’’ = non faccia la spia. ‘’Wash your face’’> from the tears. So basically he could have ruined him but he was enough, so he wasn’t a bad supervisor. ‘’I’ll fix it this time’’ > it is an action immediately undertaken. Chapter 27 page 196-97 ‘’I love it.. front of ..outside the colosseum..from the top (>for the ambission)’’ This passage regards Joe and love affair with the town. Susan is more the city girl, Joe has to choose between them after discussing with Alice. And of course he was going to choose ‘’the town’’ so Susan. When he says ‘’to corrispondance’’> like saying it is like the city wanted you all. Chapter 30> The beginning, partly of this chapter refers back to the episode with Rey. ‘’Drinking my morning tea… same satisfaction as a clean shirt and underwear’’ Rey had an expression of devotion towards Joe because he saved him from being fired with letters of resignation and bad references. So Rey wanted to maintain a good relationship with Joe, his supervisor, he prepared him the tea, he turnt off the old pages from the calenders. ‘’Can you see to that’’> deal with it. ‘’clean shirt and underwear’’> he says that them as accountants are not perfect but at the same time it’s nice to see order and cleanliness > he talks about clean shirt for ex. Down in the text> ‘’Just a job well Lampton…but I had to say something..’’ > there’s just someone asking him to do something. ‘’They were probing my face now’’> so they were testing him. So here Joe thinks he’s done, he is afraid of being accused of killing her. Now Joe plays the part of whom is against the barman for letting her drink that much, so he wanted to do something but without being discovered. -There’s references to the blood ‘’I don’t like blood’’ also we find ‘’vampires’’. So Alice who represented nature and passion now she had a violent death ...5 minutes’’> he left her so she ended up being alone in their place so that vision made her more depressed. So each element of that room was trivial. But all together creates a certain effect> like south american fish that are piranha with maul (sbranare) to the bone in 5 minutes. So one piranha doesn’t create problems while a shoal of fish does. So he would like to see Alice and then he starts thinking about her life> Pag 225> So he tries to go all the ways where she had been with the car, at least he rode around the town for a while. ‘’..against the.. I couldn’t go any longer..’’ Pag 233> ‘’The Warley bus station was...all the streets change their name’’> he was upset because he couldn’t recognise the town. ‘’I couldn’t .. in a second.. that’s the trouble’’ >This passage shows Joe who feels guilty> so that’s conscience having a priority over intelligence. So he says that she died because of him, but the other people don’t see this as a problem. For them it is just something normal because he was supposed to leave Alice long before. So when they say ‘’She would had ruined your own life’’> he did what he was supposed to do if he wanted to become part of their class. So if he wanted that he had to forget about everything else. -When he says ‘’That’s the problem, nobody blames you’ so in a way he is conscious about what he has done but the other people just wanted to be more intelligent then conscious about what he had done, the other people feel like there is no blame. So he was more like a zombie, a living dead, feeling nothing, no passion, this because Alice was his mistress, he was in love with her, they actually felt like husband and wife.. But he became now a living dead killing other people. -The idea that the other are monsters, like zombies is something we can find also when he says >’’Bob ...talons and horns..’’ > 15 – 03’’ > so the idea that he is sucking blood, so he sees Bob like a devil because> talons and horns= means > artigli e corna. So he has this idea of a society that sucks you in to achieve its purposes, without regrets. There’s a piece of dramatic irony at the very beginning in chapter 1 ‘’I came to Warly bla bla.. no more zombies Joe, no more zombies..’’> but he converts in a zombie at the and of the novel. He wasn’t true to himself. So he forgot that part of his personality, he can only feel guilty for Alice. Lucky Jim Topics -Sources of Comedy >(Humor, comedy) -Major Characters -Minor Characters -Plot: Part 1 -Symbols -Plot: Part II -Luck v Entitlement (the title is explained at the very end of the text, quindi cercalo se non lo spiega) Sources of Comedy The text contains a few> -Wordplay and verbal jokes, but these are not jokes or witticisms exchanged between characters -The Dialogues: is notable for being normality, down-to-earth quality and realism, also for the funniest character, they are real in the description of what they do in everyday life, specifically professor Welch and Bertrand -Bertrand is somehow an exception for the way he speaks -We have the reproduction and the observation of characters in the Narrative style: -The Reader laughs at a facet (sfaccettatura) of personality of characters: revealed or accentuated by what they say. Of course it’s the writer ability to show us some just that one facet of characters. -There are very few plays on words or double meanings form part of particular devices used to emphasise attitudes or reactions of the characters. Some critics suggest that there are Three principal language points in the development of comedy. 1) Vocabulary describing Dixon's faces (someth we find from the very first chapter): a it’s the faces that he forces himself to show to the world> especially when he is dealing with Professor Welch. We know from the plot that he has to show a specific face to him because he has to know that he accepts professor Welch also everything he doesn’t say b.Also the faces that he makes to himself> so the faces he imagines c. Then what he does to other people in his fantasies of violence as a reaction to things that happened to him He’s a rather mick guy, so at least is how he wants to look. One The main source of comedy in the novel is the contrast between Jim's outer world and his inner world. >The inner world is represented by his ‘’fantasies of violence’’ and also the faces that he would like to reproduce. 2) The second device reconnects to the idea wordplay so the way in which Jim picks up a word or a phrase, usually a cliché (so nothing special) – it may be his own or another person's - and mentally subjects it to sceptical scrutiny the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be created from deep nonsense. And this world is repeated in a sharply contrasting context or with a different meaning for the detriment of the word's original user. That means that the world is "Thrown back" at the first person making his or her expression seem weak or ridiculous and the person is not really aware of what Jimmy is doing with his words because sometimes is reactions are not voiced, or there are cases when it is voiced. Example> For instance Margaret’s reaction when she found out that he had created a fire is opposite to the reaction of Christine, she was embarassed of it. She takes advantage of Dixon's good-natured concern for her to keep him in a relationship, and even fakes a suicide attempt to attract the concern of eith Dixon or Catchpole (somebody who she was dating). Another important symbol is Margaret's green Paisley dress and quasi - velvet shoes that Dixon finds horrible. Just as Welch holds fast to traditional scholarly hierarchies, Margaret holds fast to a traditional gender hierarchy, she is higher in the ranking of the university. Although Margaret holds a higher position at the college, and therefore a higher salary, she still insists that he pays for all of their drinks. Margaret spends a fair amount of lime consciously acting as she thinks women should, with expressions of timid bravery and tinkly laughter. The fact that Margaret and Welch both open one of the first two chapters sets them up as Dixon's two main predicaments, so is worried because he wants to impress Professor Welch positively, because he decide just to send him away after the end of the term but he is also trying to be very cautious when dealing with Margaret because of her suicide attempt, so he doesn’t want to hurt her, he is vary cautious. Just as Dixon doesn't reveal his contempt for academia to Welch out of fear of losing his job, Dixon cannot reveal his frustrations with Margaret for fear of hurting her already-sensitive feelings. Professor Welch This is a description which regard Professor Welch that we find at the very beginning> "tall and weedy with limp-looking hair," (1.7) is a bumbling, foolish guy who barely ever seems to know what's going on around him. The term "absent-minded professor" could have been invented just for him. He's very forgetful and inattentive. For instance He invites Jim for coffee, then starts to head home without him. Jim wonders if anything at all gets inside his head. He's not a bad guy, but his cluelessness frustrates Jim, who's forced to deal with him professionally. So there’s a passage regarding a conversation between Dixon and the Professor.> Chapter 1 pag 14 "Dixon had lowred.. "> there’s a lot of pauses in this passage. Then we read ‘’have you sent it off to anyone else?’’ >because that’s an article that Dixon would like to publish in on of the journals. T.L.S.=Times literary supplement. ‘’Ah yes, ..’’>the professor takes is turn> so we don’t know if he was even listening to him because Dixon had just mentioned T.L.S. Pag 13 "They climbed College Road.. to him" > Manca "The old man was well known for an incurable evader" Ch. 1, p. 19. It is almost impossible to get any kind of straight statement out of Welch, especially when Welch is asking about something that is important for his carear. He is defined as an evader because he never wants to face things directly. -Also he> Answers to questions need to be "battered out of Welch" (Ch, 8) -He is also defined as a terrible and clueless driver, Ch. 1 P. 12-14; This is part of pretentiousness, then he also gives his sons French names> Michelle and Bertrànd -And, in a way, these personal choices are not capital crimes, but weapons when Jim's patience is at its thinnest with phony (fake) Welch's phony world. And Jim is stuck in it. Bertrand Bertrand Welch is the eldest of Professor Welch's two sons. Bertrand lives in London, where he has begun a career as a painter. Bertrand presents himself as cultured, witty, and cosmopolitan, which usually translates into a kind of elitism. Bertrand looks up to the rich and considers Dixon to be below him. Bertrand hopes to get a job with Christine's uncle, Gore-Urquhart, as the wealthy patron's personal assistant. Bertrand plans to marry Christine in a couple of years, even though he is currently having an affair with Carol Goldsmith. And that’s something that Dixon finds out. And how immediately one is ready to detest and abominate Bertrand, the pseudo-aesthete and bully who is the spoiled son of the Professor Welch and his hard-boiled wife. -Regarding the observation, representation of the way the character speak, there’s a very specific device that was developed by the writer. Sometimes he changes the ending of words, especially the double ‘e’ in ae (ei en), that is something that appears the very first time Bertrand appear in the novel Also he doesn’t only have a bad beard and an affectedly metropolitan manner, but this gargoyle pronounces the word "see" as "sam." The extremely trying noise comes out like this. Ch. 4, p. 51. ‘’Bertrand and his girl..’’> ‘’identical expressions’’> so at the beginning Dixon thinks that she’s very much like pretentious as Bertrand. ‘’his voice baying a little more noticeably> his voice is almost always loud. ..m’ > In this passage he is describing what is going on physically when he articulates syllables. Distorted pronunciation takes place at intervalls, so this changes don’t happen each time he speaks, this contributes more to the comic effect, especially when he says something he is very passionate about, when he says > "you sam," "hostelram," "got mam?," "this is just how I expected things to bam," and (most tellingly, in my view) "obviouslam." Because he is so pretentious, and passionate about his own life when he speaks it seems like he had already planned in advanced what he wants to say Mrs. Welch To some critics she is the nemesis (like the Greek goddess of retributive justice). She's married the Professor, and the mother of Bertrand (who Dixon detests). Jim dislikes Mrs. Welch just on general principles. There’s a reference to the fact that she’s at home and she takes all the calls. There’s one event Ch. 9 p. 98> "Things at once happened.. ". There are two phone calls one after another, the first is between Dixon and Christine, Christine tries to reach professor Welch at university, but he is not there so for some reason it is Dixon who takes the call. So Christine calls and says that she had called because she would like to know about bertrand who was going to take part in a social event organized by the university. And of course, because prof Welch is not there nobody can tell her so she asks Dixon to call, She doesn’t want to speak to Mrs Welch so she ask Dixon to call the Welches to see How Bertrand is going to this party, if he was going with somebody else, this because they had probably broken up. So Jim accepts. ‘’Why worry’’> why was he worried ? Because of the burning accident. ‘’...when you..’’> she is not upsetminded (sconvolta) But of couse he shouldn’t be worried because that’s the very thing she brings up in the conversation ‘’what you did to those sheets and blankets’’> because they finally tried to cut out the burned piece and hide it somehow. Pag 99 "He wanted to scream.. painting, sir" > This is Dixons’ reaction. ‘’into a O’’ >mechanical descriptions. ‘’.. quite sure’’> so he’s clever enough to play this sort of ‘’trunk’’ because he doesn’t want to face the situation. But at the same time we read ‘’he wanted to scream’’ > that’s his reaction. ‘’..just a minute’’> because he actually had to speak to Mrs Welch but actually to Bertrand. ‘’hang on at all costs’’> That is, okay I’m waiting, because that is > I want a word with bertrand to help Christine. ‘’..baying directly into his ear..’> that means that he wasn’t really happy to speak to Bertrand, because he knew. ‘’..bearded lips’’> this means that this lips where right next to his ears. ‘’..beginning to plan..’’> because he was improvising, so he started saying something, but at the same time he was trying to think how to continue. Vain =vanitoso, he is using these words but of course he’s happy of this harmless publicity. ‘’engaged on that moment’’> this means ‘’a cosa si sta dedicando adesso’’. ‘’bottom is the exact word’’> again, taking the word and changing the meaning, playing with that word. ‘’bottom dollar’’> ‘’bottom’’ because he has no money. ‘’do wam’’> it is ‘’do we’’. ‘’..oil painting sir’’> so they continue along this night to talk about his painting, and then because it is something that he has invented to entertain Bertrand, but he just would like to know about what he is taking in the party. So he has to try and move the conversation back to Christine somehow. Pag 100-101-102‘’Wouldn’t dream of it..Beesley’’ > ‘’he’d’’> inventing something ‘’..would that be right..’’ > so he starts talking about Christine. ‘’..to him, you see, sir’’> he is switching and referring to Christine pretending that she asked teh magazine to write an article acout Bertrand. ‘’..to ring her..’’> now he’s taking advantage of this to actually say that Christine wants Bertrand to call her. ‘’Beesley sir..’’> Beesley is one of his roomate. Her primary role seems to be as an obstacle Jim has to get past in order to reach the Professor, Bertrand of Christine, since she's the one who always answers the phone at their house. She's always suspicious when Jim places one of his fake calls to her house. (- We're sure Jim's confrontations with Bertrand don't endear him to Mrs. Welch. But in her defense, she does put up with a houseful of weekend guests during her husband's medieval music fest, and she opens her home to Margaret during her convalescence. Jim doesn't like to think about that he'd prefer to continue to view Mrs. Welch as completely evil) Bill Atkinson Bill is Jim's co-conspirator. He and Jim share the same contempt for people in general, and Bill can be called upon to Help Jim out by placing a bogus phone call or faking a fainting spell. Dixon liked and revered him for his air of detesting everything that presented itself to his senses, and of not meaning to let his detestation become stated by custom. Atkinson is described as a physically imposing and ferocious-looking guy. Whenever the landlady sees him, she runs out of the room. For fun, he reads wrestling magazines. Evan Johns Just like Bob Atkinson is there to help Jim with his schemes, the musician Evan Johns seems to exist in this book for the sake of ruining them. The first description we ever get of Johns is that he's "a silent mover, a potential eavesdropper, and a friend of the Welches, especially Mrs. Welch (Ch 3, p.54). Being a good musician buddy of the Welches is enough to make Jim hate Johns. Every time we think Jim's going to get away with something, Johns acts as an informer. He gets what's coming to him when Jim throws all of his important insurance paperwork into an incinerator.