The Ruby In The Smoke Essay

708 Words3 Pages
Describe an important challenge that a main/important character faces. Explain how this challenge helped you to understand the character. (at year 9 or form 3 level) In the novel The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman, the antagonist Mrs. Holland faces an important challenge. She finds herself in the difficult situation of letting herself go after the ruby which is sinking; thus risking her life… or to be brave and walk away from the ruby for the first time. The choice Mrs. Holland makes helps the reader to understand what she has gone through and what type of person she is. The novel; The Ruby in the Smoke is set in Victorian London, 1872, the novels plot is based on opium, the filthy streets of London and at the heart of it all; a cursed ruby that everybody needs… As stated above Mrs. Holland is the antagonist of the novel, she is the person who seems to need the ruby more than anyone else as she believes it was rightfully hers from the first moment the maharajah promised it to her twenty years ago. An important challenge she faces is when she can finally possess the ruby the maharajah promised to her so many years ago from Sally who has agreed to trade the ruby in exchange for information. But Sally throws the ruby into the river instead of giving it to Mrs. Holland as she promised, ‘They both heard the faint splash far below as the stone hit the water; then Mrs. Holland went mad’ Mrs. Holland can than either give herself up to the ruby and plunge into the river after it, or to be brave and walk away. Either way she gives up, if she goes after the ruby; risking her life in the process, she has gave up living, if she walks away she has finally gave up the ruby. In the novel Mrs. Holland decides that she would rather end her life than walk away, ‘She thrust Sally aside and scrambled up on to the parapet. She tottered wildly for a moment; Sally
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