Today as I was discussing a chapter of his thesis with one of my research scholars I was struck by a discovery about people that is captured so brilliantly in some of the novels of Charles Dickens. A number of people who are well placed and in commanding positions begin to take themselves too seriously and this trait in their characters is reflected by the manner in which they speak. Such people are often repetitive as they have grown on a very limited number of thoughts and ideas that they need to depend upon. Their egos have restricted their growth, allowing them to branch outwards only slightly and therefore such people have to rely on just the few ideas that that they have been able to garner to support their intellects. In their situations they need to speak with repetition and exaggeration as that is about all they can do. They often depend on the style, or form, of their speeches rather than the content. They are therefore fit subjects for caricature and Dickens makes good use of this literary approach.

Dickens has sometimes been blamed for exaggeration and caricature, but he retorted by saying that what appears to be exaggeration in some people could well be their truth. I fully agree with him. Realism is always a comparative term. Some people in powerful positions have a reality that is made of a put on self; a self that relies on exaggeration, repetition and other affectations.