Analysis of the main character Oliver Bacon in "The Duchess and The Jeweller"

Oliver Bacon, the jeweller, is really the only developed character in the short story "The Duchess and the Jeweller" by Virginia Woolf. The author uses the indirect stream-of consciousness technique as well as her own words to depicts the enterprising merchant as a many-sided man: He is both ambitious and sympathetic. The jeweller is highly arrogant and ambitious. His strutting smugness is evident through the animal metaphors used to portray him-from his physical bearing ("his …

…At the end of the story, when "again he was a little boy in the alley where they sold dogs on Sunday" we recognize the fundamental human nature of need and desires, and grant Bacon absolution for his failings. In a nutshell, Oliver Bacon's character is described vividly by the stream-of-consciousness technique together with Woolf's words. From a little boy to a successful jeweller, his life can be regarded as a mixture of ambition sentimentality.