Characterisation of Violet

Violet is both the narrator and the main character in the short story “On Pale Green Walls” by Clare Wigfall .

Outer characterisation

Her outer characterisation informs us she is a mute child, being only as tall as her mother’s legs (l. 11). The narrator describes what she was wearing on Christmas night: “I must have been wearing at least five or six layers that evening, several jumpers, woolly tights pulled above my belly button, a thermal vest tucked into my knickers.” (ll. 24-27)

Inner characterisation

Violet’s inner characterisation presents her as a typical child. She is impressed by the festive atmosphere in the church, but she is afraid of strangers: “…and it all smelt different – exciting and special. (…) He stood only a little taller than I, back curled like the paper end of a party-hooter. Frightened by his wrinkles, I shrank into my mother’s legs.” (ll. 8-11)

Violet does not perceive the world like adults do. She is drawn to the statue of the Virgin Mary but she thinks she is simply a beautiful angelic woman. Furthermore, Violet does not understand religion; she does not know who the Virgin Mary or Jesus are. Violet’s obsession with the image of the Virgin Mary can be interpreted as the girl’s need for a loving and understanding figure in her life: “Hers was the prettiest face I’d ever seen, all pointed down except for the eyes which arched upwards. I thought she was an angel; didn’t know any better.” (ll. 30-32)

Like girls try to imitate their mothers, Violet wants to imitate the image of Virgin Mary:

She’d let her hair down at my grandmother’s. It reached to her waist in long dark waves. For weeks after, each time I looked in the mirror, I’d tug furiously at my short pigtails and I cried when my mother took me to the hairdresser’s to give me a neat bob. (ll. 40-43)

However, the girl’s passion for the female figure turns into jealousy when she sees a picture of her holding a baby. Violet is jealous of the baby because he receives all the attention of the woman:

In her arms she held a baby. I stared at that baby’s face and hated it as I’d never hated anything before. She was looking down at it, smiling at its bald head, and I could tell how she loved it. (ll. 49-51)

Violet manifests her frustration in a typically childish way, drawing crosses, blood, and a dagger, on the newspaper picture she sees of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus: "With my pencil I stabbed two holes where the calm tiny eyes were and then, taking a red crayon, I drew blood coming out of its mouth and a dagger in its heart. Contented, I pushed the paper back..." (ll. 53-56)

Because she does not know who the woman and the baby are, Violet does not understand the real reason why her parents are upset when they see her drawing; she assumes it is because she drew on the newspaper:

I pressed my shoulders up against my ears to muffle their voices, but I could tell my mother was upset. She swooped down to me. “Why did you do it, Violet?” she asked, pulling my head from my arms.
I knew then...