The Character of Mr.Watts - 3316 Words

Character of Mr. Watts Tom Christian Watts, known locally as Pop Eye, is an elderly white man living in the village with his black wife, Grace. Grace is from the village and now suffers from an undisclosed mental illness. He and his wife are local eccentrics, providing the children with entertainment on occasions when Pop Eye, wearing a clown’s red nose, pulls his wife along the village in a trolley. In turn, she stands regally looking at no-one. Matilda is keen to understand what this behaviour means, ‘sensing a bigger story’, but the adults ‘looked away’ as if embarrassed by the sight. Only at the end of the novel is the ‘bigger story’ made clear. At the start of the story Matilda only knows what she sees of Mr. Watts: he wore ‘the†¦show more content†¦But she changed it. Her name is Sheba.’ The reader now thinks of Pop Eye with his clown’s nose pulling along his queenly wife on the trolley. Why did Grace feel the need to change? What had she moved from and to? Later on Mr. Watts comes into open conflict with Dolores over her disapproval of Mr. Watts’ teaching of a work of irrelevant fiction, as Dolores sees ‘Great Expectations’, instead of God’s word and His influence on Matilda’s thinking. Dolores challenges Mr. Watts to deny the Devil’s existence in a story of her own. His response is: ‘Pip is an orphan -----emigrant’s experience. Each leaves behind the place they grew up in . Each strikes out on his own. Each is free to create himself anew. Each is also free to make mistakes---‘ While we recognise the similarity of explanation given to Matilda earlier in the story we begin to understand that he is talking to Dolores about Grace and that some of Dolores’s hostility towards Mr. Watts has to do with his wife, a childhood friend of Dolores. By the end of the novel the reader understands he may be referring to himself. When the redskins finally arrive at the village looking for rebel soldiers there is confusion caused by seeing Pip’s name in the sand. Daniel tries to be helpful by explaining ‘Pip belongs to Mr. Dickens, sir’, pointing to the school and the officer misinterprets this to be Mr. Dickens instead of Tom Watts. Mr. Watts causes further confusion by owning up to being Mr.Show MoreRelatedWilliam Shakespeare s Hamlet 907 Words   |  4 Pagesstrong aspects of Hamlet’s state of mind. Within these lines there is hesitance, motivation, and suffering. Each of these characteristics can be seen in The Kite Runner portrayed in the character Amir. These characteristics are also portrayed in the character Matilda from Mister Pip. Though each of these characters, Hamlet, Amir, and Matilda, all have very different story lines, they are all relatable through the characteristics of hesitance, motivation, and suffering. Hamlet expresses hesitance,Read MoreThemes Of Mister Pip By Lloyd Jones1206 Words   |  5 PagesCourage and morality are two prominent themes in Mister Pip that are frequently demonstrated throughout the novel. Many characters in Mister Pip accurately show what it means to be both courageous and understanding. Mister Pip, written by Lloyd Jones is a novel recounted by the bright and curious thirteen-year-old Matilda, who presents the events over a three year time period from 1990 to 1993. The central storyline tells the lives of the inhabitants of a small village. The villager’s lives are gradually