Characterisation of Jessica

Jessica David can be viewed as the antagonist in the story “Don’t You Hate Having Two Heads?” by Christine Poulson.

Outer characterisation

Her outer characterisation reveals that she is named Jessica David (p. 13, l. 28). On the one hand, she might have given Richard her real name because she suspected that nobody else could find out her identity once she would kill him. On the other hand, her name might be fake, as she probably could not risk anyone else finding out the truth about her. On the same note, the details about her being a postgrad student interested in surrealists might be either true or false: “As they drank the first glass, she told him about her research. She was looking at various surrealist artists from a feminist view-point.” (p. 14, ll. 10-12)

The rest of her outer characterisation reveals that she is a beautiful “brown-eyed blonde” (p. 12, l. 4), with “shoulder length hair” (p.  11, l. 19) and “half a head taller” (p. 11, l. 21) than Richard. The ending of the story reveals that Jessica’s victims were shorter than her, which presumably made it easier for her to kill them. When Richard meets her, she wears a “fitted jacket in tan suede and high-waisted brown trousers that flattered a slender figure” (p. 11, ll. 23-24).

Inner characterisation

In terms of inner characterisation, all we know about Jessica is what she displays in connection to Richard. At first, she seems genuinely interested in the surrealist painting “The Robing of the Bride” (p. 11, ll. 28-30) and does not seem to notice that Richard is looking at her. Still, the fact that she utters “Don’t you hate having two heads?” (p. 12, l. 1) when he is near her indicates that she knows that she is being watched.

She is kind when she explains to Richard what she meant and she displays knowledge about ...

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