Explore How Deception Is Presented Via the Characters of Sue and Maud in Fingersmith.

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Explore how deception is presented via the characters of Sue and Maud in Fingersmith. Deception is a key theme throughout the novel ‘Fingersmith’. It is presented between many of the characters but we as the readers are the main victims of this which creates interest. Waters’ feminist perspective is a key feature throughout the novel which challenges convention of the typical Victorian novel and is presented mainly between Sue and Maud. Waters’ also uses two narrators which creates tension and builds the reader up to knowing the truth. Waters’ uses Gentleman to play a key role in the deception between Sue and Maud. “’Then I’ll take her unsuspecting to the madhouse gates’” Gentleman says this as a way to get Sue to play along, it is also foreshadowing that, in fact, it will be Sue entering the madhouse which means that she does not suspect her fate. The use of the adjective ‘unsuspecting’ suggests that they are going to trick her. We, as the reader, see this as unfair but they see it as normal as during the Victorian times, a husband could put their wife in a madhouse without question. Maud is presented at first as clueless as to what is going on around her but our opinion changes as we get further into the novel. “’and your last mistress’ she went on then, ‘she was quite a fine lady’” here, Maud is deceiving Sue, making her believe that she is ignorant to her plan. The way Waters’ makes the character of Maud act blind to what is going on around her is how she deceives the reader, by making them believe one thing and then revealing the other. Maud makes Sue believe that she is a lovely, kind person to aid her deception. “’I wish you would tell me,’ she said, ‘what a wife must do, on her wedding night!’” This innocent like quote suggests that Maud is deceiving sue by again, acting clueless and pretending that being stuck at Briar like a prisoner has made her

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