Bessie Head, author of the short story “The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses” builds her characters through the use of description and diction. Not only does the protagonist, Brille become a clear, almost real image in the reader’s mind, but also the rest of the prisoners, and the antagonist Warder Hannetjie. Head’s skill of description allows the reader to feel as though they may in fact know the characters. She uses slight descriptive words to actually describe the characters but the image builds thanks to the diction she used for the different characters.
Throughout the reading, the character Brille becomes almost an acquaintance through what the reader learns from Head’s diction and description. Brille’s description of what he looks like is simple. There’s not much to his description at all, “. . . a thin little fellow with a hollowed-out chest and comic knobby knees” (Head, 11). Already, an image of this prisoner is formed. Head portrays Brille as being a loyal and honest companion to the others. Prisoners are not supposed to eat cabbage and when the warder sees a cabbage that Brille dropped after eating part of it, he asks who did it and Brille replies, “I did” (Head, 13). Brille owned up to his wrongdoing so that the others would not have to pay for what he had done showing that he is indeed respectful and faithful to his companions. Brille appears to be well educated judging by the diction used in the story. In a letter to his children Brille writes: “Be good comrades, my children. Cooperate, then life will run smoothly” (Head, 14). The vocabulary and pronunciation shown insinuate that Brille is well educated. Brille and his personality are well created because of Bessie Head’s use of description and diction.
Br...
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...he reader an image of a group of sly men in a sort of family like group doing as they please, together.
Bessie Head uses diction and description in her short story to build characters. By the end, the reader feels as if they had met Brille, Hannetjie and the rest of the prisoners. Head uses her skills in description to create a picture in the reader’s mind. She goes on with the use of diction to pick out personality traits and relationships between different characters. Throughout the story there is a steady build of the characters in the reader’s mind.
Works Cited
• Head, Bessie “The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses”, Heinemann International, African Writers Series, Copyright 1989
• Modern World Literature, McDougal Littell, Houghton Mifflin Company, Copyright 2001
• wiseGEEK.com, Morrow, Licia “What is an antagonist”, Conjecture Corporation, Copyright 2003-2013
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