Comparing Fosco and Glyde to Villains

Comparing Fosco and Glyde to Villains

A villain is somebody who is devious, cunning, and in most cases he or

she is intelligent. In almost all-good English literature there are

villains, from the woman in white itself to Charles Dickens' Oliver

Twist. Villains usually play a large part in books and are typically

two faced, violent, and with only their interests in mind. They play

with people's emotions in order to gain the best out of them, and are

often multi-faceted. In the woman in White there are two main

villains, Count Fosco, and Sir Percival Glyde.

Sir Percival Glyde, in the woman in white is a slick and forceful

character, and immediately makes his presence known in the book. He is

first referred to as 'a gentlemen of large property in Hampshire'.

This gives him the image of a well-respected person, which he uses to

his advantage. It is soon found out that Sir Percival is a villain and

his motive is to gain Laura's inheritance. He would do almost anything

to get his own way, but has the disadvantage of not knowing how to be

a good villain. For example when Count Fosco speaks of Laura's sudden

death, he implies that they would kill her, and this shocks Sir

Percival. He would not know how to go about killing a woman, and is

obviously not keen on the idea. This shows that Sir Percival does have

some morals, however insignificant they may be. A true villain on the

other hand is never scared of the consequences of their actions and

will not let anything stand in their way to power.

We find out further into the book that Sir Percival has bad

intentions, and an anonymous letter is sent to Laura, which warns her

about him. The...

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...re both sacred of the power and control that the two have over them

and are also scared of what they could do to them.

Fosco, on the other hand is much harder to compare to other well know

villains in literature. But if anyone, he is similar to Sykes from

Oliver Twist. One reason is that he has supreme control over Percival

in a similar way that Fagin does over Sykes. They both start off as

intelligent and have decent reputations and use their associate's

power to their advantage.

To conclude, I believe that a cunning and intelligent mind will always

beat brute force and money. I believe that because of Fosco's superior

knowledge and control of Sir Percival that Percival does not even

stand a chance against a villain such as Fosco. This is why I believe

that Count Fosco is more of a villain than Sir Percival Glyde.