Character Sketch of Katherine Bridges
Character of Katherine Bridges
Katherine Bridges was a young and beautiful girl of twenty-five. She had blue, flashing eyes, freckled cheeks and smooth straw coloured hair. She was a governess out of job. She gave the impression of being soberly beautiful and not aggressively glamorous (alluring or tempting) .Mr. Chips came across her during his visit to the Lake District. Before meeting her, Chips had never shown any interact in feminine charms and had never thought of family or marriage. But her sweet, free, frank, fearless and impressive manners won Chips heart. She was social and liberal. She was interested in the revolutionary ideas of the writers like Bernard Shaw, Ibsen and William Morris. She was a radical socialist. She was in favour of equality, fraternity and freedom of women.
She was revolutionary and was in favour of women’s right of voting. She was the most daring and the most modern woman in that old Victorian society of Brookfield. Being a woman did not bar Katherine from climbing hills and riding bicycles. Victorians frowned upon a woman visiting a man living alone, but Katherine did not hesitate to visit Mr. Chips when he was injured. In fact, she wanted woman to be having equal right like men by being admitted to universities and being allowed to vote.
Before his marriage, Chips was a dull, dry and neutral sort of person. . He had confidence, satisfaction, everything except inspiration. He drifted aimlessly through life and his teaching lacked orientation. Katherine became a star by which he was to steer his life Katherine made him a new man. With her impressive and charming personality, she induced a new life in the old mind and body of Mr. Chips. She broadened his views
and opinions, improved his discipline and sharpened his sense of humour. He was honoured and obeyed by everyone but after his marriage people began to love him due to great change in him.
Katherine gave a new dimension to the future of Brookfield. She entered like a gleam of modernity in the ancient surrounding of Brookfield. She was the centre of attention, wherever she went. In other words, like Caser, she came, she saw and she conquered. She persuaded Chips and other teachers to invite the football team of missionary school to play a match with the boys of Brookfield school. That’s why she was popular among the boys and teacher at Brookfield.
The sweeter the fragrance, the sooner it is wafted (vanished) away; similarly, Katherine’s life was short and beautiful. She died one year after her marriage on April 1“ 1898 during child birth. She appeared like a shooting-star on the skies of Brookfield. Though she died, yet she lived in the heart and mind of Mr. Chips. Her life left an everlasting impression on Mr. Chips life and behind the serious and sad demeanour (manner) of Mr. Chips, there was always embedded the vivacious(full of life) smile of Katherine Bridges.
The gulf between the past and the future is always unbridgeable. When they do come together, there is bound to be discord. Rarely, does it result in harmony; as with Katherine and Chips. In their case, love proved to be the binding factor. On the other hand, Chips and Ralston had a plain professional relationship which was liable to conflict. This conflict was mainly generated by the difference in their ages and ides.
Ralston was a young man of thirty-seven when eh joined Brookfield as headmaster. His academic record had been brilliant all along. He came to the job full of bright new ideas for the future of the school. Chips had to step down from the post of acting Headmaster, but this did not disappoint him at all. He was well into his fifties and had become an institution within an institution. The staff and students considered him an integral part of the school, and he felt himself above minor considerations of rank and posting.
After Katherine’s death, his attitude to life had become somewhat philosophical. The initial shock had slowly dissolved into a calm acceptance of the fact and her memory lived on like a soft glow in his thoughts.
Note: But not everything is so bad in modern education, there are also positive moments. For example, the volume of school knowledge is quite diverse, which gives the graduate a relatively broad outlook. The child learns to work, build relationships and communicate in a team. The necessary communication skills are being developed. Thus, it is embedded in the social system. In the process of learning, the child learns to communicate with people of his and the other sex. Graduates of schools have the opportunity to continue their education and in the future to get a good job. In addition, an important role is played by studying from the initial classes of a foreign language and a computer. This is simply necessary for children to freely “swim” in the sea of modern technology. Interactive whiteboard, computers, video and audio equipment – a great help in learning new material in the classroom, in our time it was not. For example, we studied a foreign language only from the textbook, although sometimes the teacher let me listen to how another language sounds in the record on the record. The great advantage of modern education is the introduction of new methods for monitoring evaluations, for example, a single school journal or an electronic diary. Using an electronic diary, it becomes possible to control the student not only by the teacher, but also by the parents. Thanks to this innovation, we, the parents, can at any moment learn about the homework and the progress of your child. Now he can hardly say that there was no assignment for the house. In addition, the teacher facilitated the task of disseminating the necessary information. This applies to both school assessments and parent meetings. It is enough to make a dispatch and to warn about the date and time of the class gathering. In addition, we, the parents, will be able to make our own adjustments to the topic of the meeting, put forward proposals and discuss exciting topics.
