In Ch.42, when Magwitch tells
us his life story he narrates how he became an accomplice of the smooth talking,
charming and stylish villain Compeyson:
readability="11">
"At Epsom races, a matter of over
twenty years ago, I got acquainted wi' a man whose skull I'd crack wi' this poker, like
the claw of a lobster, if I'd got it on this hob. His right name was
Compeyson."
Abel Magwitch is
an orphan who in order to keep himself from starving took to a life of crime from his
boyhood days:
readability="17">
"Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes
when I could - though that warn't as often as you may think, till you put the question
whether you would ha' been over-ready to give me work yourselves - a bit of a poacher, a
bit of a labourer, a bit of a waggoner, a bit of a haymaker, a bit of a hawker, a bit of
most things that don't pay and lead to
trouble."
Compeyson on the
contrary was a well to do gentleman who had had a good public school education but who
chose a life of crime voluntarily:
readability="15">
And what was Compeyson's business in which we
was to go pardners? Compeyson's business was the swindling, handwriting forging, stolen
bank-note passing, and such-like. All sorts of traps as Compeyson could set with his
head, and keep his own legs out of and get the profits from and let another man in for,
was Compeyson's business. He'd no more heart than a iron file, he was as cold as death,
and he had the head of the Devil afore
mentioned.
The irony being of
course for every crime that Compeyson planned and executed using Magwitch as his
accomplice, it was always Magwitch who was arrested by the police. Once, however, both
of them were arrested and had to stand trial. However, the magistrate looking at the
polished, elegant exterior of Compeyson gave him a lighter sentence remarking that it
was Magwitch who had been a bad influence on Compeyson and had transformed him into a
hardened criminal:
readability="20">
And when the verdict come, warn't it Compeyson
as was recommended to mercy on account of good character and bad company, and giving up
all the information he could agen me, and warn't it me as got never a word but Guilty?
And when I says to Compeyson, 'Once out of this court, I'll smash that face of yourn!'
ain't it Compeyson as prays the Judge to be protected, and gets two turnkeys stood
betwixt us? And when we're sentenced, ain't it him as gets seven year, and me fourteen,
and ain't it him as the Judge is sorry for, because he might a done so well, and ain't
it me as the Judge perceives to be a old offender of wiolent passion, likely to come to
worse?"
Through the character
of Compeyson Dickens satirizes the unfair penal laws of his time and reveals how social
circumstances convert poor orphans into hardened
criminals.
Through the character of Compeyson Dickens pours
his contempt on 'gentlemen' by stating that 'gentleman' is a synonym for 'liar' and
'villain,'
readability="10">
He's a gentleman, if you
please, this
villain.
"He's
a liar born, and he'll die a liar.
[Ch.5]
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