The Duchess and the Jeweler is the story of the world’s greatest jeweler who had promised his mother to become the world’s richest jeweler in his childhood but now that his dream has come true he is not satisfied. So, trying to achieve satisfaction, he knowingly buys fake pearls from a duchess in exchange for spending a whole weekend with his daughter with whom he is in love. The purpose of this essay is to show how Virginia Woolf has managed to present the inner mind of the characters, their struggle and her communication through the least amount of verbal communication between them.
The silent communication created by Woolf’s “The Duchess and the Jeweler” is, firstly, the communication between the reader and the story, and secondly, the communication between the characters in the text itself. In better words, this story firstly reveals the minds of the characters to the reader through the least amount of explicit expression of their states, and secondly presents the interaction between the characters in the story through the as few dialogues as possible between them.
The first instance of unvoiced communication between the reader and the story is the revelation of Oliver Bacon’s childhood memories that occurs without the author giving them a voice. The reader’s first encounter with Oliver’s childhood takes place when he addresses himself: “you who started your life in the dirty alley” and then falls back on childhood memories of him. This brief statement by Oliver to himself is very expressive of his childhood and also of his attitude towards this period of his life. Through the author’s earlier descriptions of where Oliver lives, his servant, and his habits, it is revealed that Oliver Bacon is a very wealthy man now, while this brief self-direction reveals the poverty of his childhood. It is also through flashbacks of him that readers realize that he started out selling stolen dogs, continued to sell watches from a small counter, and eventually rose to his current profession as a jeweler. So it is primarily through Oliver’s silent memories that the reader becomes familiar with his early days. Also, this little talk of Oliver with himself shows the reader that he has a concern for his childhood and all the efforts he has made to save all his money. Although he never mentions it, his constant flashbacks show how important his childhood is to him. As an example, when Oliver is in his room just before the Duchess’s entrance, he begins to think of his past childhood in misery and hard times. This shows how Virginia Woolf cleverly, without explicitly mentioning Oliver’s concern for her childhood, interacts with the reader through the character’s flashbacks and gives them the opportunity to engage with the text. Thus, Oliver’s mind and also his general history are revealed to the reader through the fewest number of spoken words of the character.
Woolf has also taken advantage of the use of images to reveal Oliver’s dissatisfied state to the reader through his language of signs and images as an alternative to words. She resembles Oliver to a camel that is trapped in the zoo and is not satisfied with his life, because she can see “the blue lake and the fringe of palm trees in front of him”. In other words, Oliver wants more and more and despite all of his meetings he feels like a mother camel who is thirsty for the water he sees but cannot reach. Also the reader reads of Oliver’s loneliness and his need for a soul mate, as Oliver recalls the days when “mademoiselle used to pick a (red rose) every morning and stick it in her buttonhole”. This image gives the reader the understanding that Oliver feels the lack of an anima in his life; that there has been someone for whom Oliver probably had a feeling of love (image of red rose) and that she has left Oliver because of his greed for money. This is later confirmed by the text itself: “but mademoiselle had married Mr. Pedder of the local brewery, no one put roses in her buttonholes.” This sentence again confirms his loneliness and his need for a wife, although Oliver himself does not mention it directly.
The revelation of Oliver’s mother’s dominance over his life and the fact that she has been dictating it all his life and even now, after his death, is dictating it to her, is understood through his constant reminder of his mother in all the decisions she made in her life. though this is never directly mentioned in the story. He remembers his mother scolding him when he stole dogs as a child and when he buys fake pearls from the duchess at the end of the story he apologizes to the old woman in the photo and feels like a little boy again. So these constant reminders of his mother also imply to the reader her mother’s dominance over him even after her death, though this is understood and never stated.
The reader is also aware of Oliver’s arrogance and pride, in his contacts with his workers, although hardly any conversation is carried out with them; In the first contact of the workers with Oliver in his workshop there is no spoken communication; however, through his “glare of envy”, the reader understands his attitudes towards Oliver and his indifference towards them is revealed when the author says that “it was only with one finger of the amber glove, wagging that he acknowledged his presence”. This unspoken interaction between them is largely expressive of his mutual attitude.
As mentioned above, this unspoken communication between the reader and the text also takes place between the characters in the story. The first silent communication between the characters occurs when Oliver, as a young man, walks past a group of jewelers discussing the price of gold and “one of them would put a finger to the side of his nose and mutter, ‘hum-mm, ‘ when it passed. It was no more than a murmur, no more than an elbow to the shoulder, a finger to the nose, a buzz that went through the group of jewelers… but still Oliver felt it purring down his back, the nudge. , the murmur that meant, ‘look at him, young Oliver, the young jeweler, there he goes.’ As the text says, the slightest gesture of the jewelers has meant many words of encouragement for Oliver and he still remembers that murmur among the jewelers.
The next stance of voiceless interaction between the characters is the communication between Oliver and the Duchess. In the Duchess’s visit to Oliver’s shop, the author’s very colorful descriptions of the Duchess, her clothing, her sparkling jewelry, her fragrance, her undulating motion, and her resemblance to a peacock in beauty and arrogance reveal much about the Duchess. she. her high status and the influence she can have over Oliver. However, her communications are not limited to unspoken conversation; there is a dialogue between them, although this communication is through the least number of words. They speak but their use of words is very economical which makes their interaction the most efficient. An example of this brief interaction is the duchess’s fragmented words when she wants to persuade Oliver to buy her fake pearls; she drops pearls from a bag: “‘From Appleby’s girdle,’ she groaned. ‘last…last of all.'” And she goes on to justify her desperation: “Dear Mr. Bacon, a bit of bad luck…” and then justifies her cause of coming as “‘that villain! That sharper one'” which explains her objection to the husband. her. These brief, simple and apparently fragmented conversations between the duchess and the jeweler very clearly describe their internal states and her attitudes towards each other. We understand that both Oliver and the Duchess understand the meaning of this wordless communication. Also, as soon as they shake hands, they feel the enmity between them, although they also feel the need they have for each other, so they both participate in this game of deceiving and submitting to deception. A clue to this is his play on the phrase: “old friend”, when the Duchess tries to soften Oliver up by calling him “old friend” twice and Oliver, who understands what she means, repeats her phrase two more times. the communication continues to the point where Oliver buys the duchess’s fake pearls without questioning the duchess.
In “The Duchess and the Jeweler,” Virginia Woolf skillfully describes the increased amount of communication that takes place between the characters in the text despite their lack of verbal communication, and also the deep understanding that readers can gain from the characters in the text. although her emotions and moods are not explicitly expressed. It replaces lengthy dialogue and straightforward descriptions of character states with brief but meaningful dialogue and the use of imagery and entry into the characters’ minds and gives the reader the opportunity to read much of their current and sufficient state of being. their past lives. she needed to bring the story out of her.