Harriet Said (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Beryl Bainbridge
- First Published: 1972
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: The mid-twentieth century
- Setting: Formby, England
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: Maturation or coming of age, Children, Sex or sexuality, Murder or homicide, Twentieth century, England or English people, Good and evil, Ethics
- Locales: England
Characters Discussed
The narrator, a thirteen-year-old middle- class English girl. Home for the summer from the boarding school to which she has been sent as a “problem child,” she resumes her interrupted friendship with a neighbor girl, Harriet, whom she admires and to whom she feels inferior. Plain and heavyset, she is flattered when a married man in their seashore town, Mr. Biggs, shows a sexual interest in her. Under Harriet’s guidance, she plots the seduction of this man, toward whom she has ambivalent feelings of fascination and disgust. She is vaguely repelled by...
[The entire page is 684 words long]
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