blackmail..doc

Blackmail(高英之人物性格分析) Blackmail is a piece of narration and it emphases on nature of characters through the vivid plots. The three figures, the Duke, the Duchess and the detective hold different characteristics. The first character, the Duke was fond of liquor and other men’s wives. This point was proved by the detective in the passage, he said that before the car accident happened the Duke took a lady friend and had a drink. Besides he is also cowardly and submissive to his wife. In the whole passage the Duke had the least words but his behavior implicated his cowardice. When he killed the little girl and her mother he ran away and turned to his wife for help; when his hit-and-run was known and blackmailed by detective he didn’t know how to deal with and just hided behind his wife, frightened and focused on the negotiation between the detective and his wife. In contrast to the Duke’s weakness, the Duchess was an arrogant, calm, sensitive and firm lady. The sentence “The Duchess of Corydon—three centuries and a half of inbred arrogance behind her—did not yield easily” told us that the Duchess’s arrogance was from her parents of whole noble families so it was powerful enough to lead her to be a strong person and dare to faced such rude a detective. Her calmness, witness and sensitivity helped her to change the position from passive side to active side. She had to play the most important role in this serious event as she knew her husband’s weakness so well. Therefore when each battle of wits performed between the detective and her, she always tightened her lips, met the detective’s eyes directly and said in a sharp and cold tone to alleviate her nerves and surpassed the detective’s effrontery and even when the detective threatened her and asked for a large sum of money she still had seated herself in a straight-backed chair and kept calmness. ? Ogilvie, the last major figure in the passage was a greedy, poor-educated, and evil detective. The cigar is his major prop a