She is cute but she is also silly and stupid, putting her apron over her head to hide her face like a shy child and only being tempted out by ‘lumps-of-delight’ - a far better name for Turkish delight which I am certainly going to include in my vocabulary. She is constantly referred to as childlike, she has immature strops, she has been coddled for most of her life in pity of her orphaned status (and in honour of her coming wealth). To be honest, I can’t see why everyone is so hot for Rosa. The complicating factor is that Jasper has his own obsession with Rosa, signified by a poorly drawn picture of her he has on the wall. Rosa is less keen on the arrangement, not because she doesn’t like the young man, but because she resents not being given options. He is engaged with Rosa Budd, another orphan of rich inheritance, the engagement was decided by both sets of parents before they die and Drood seems to regard her as another good thing he has coming to him. Drood is an orphan who will shortly be taking his place in his father’s company and become an engineer in Egypt. As the chapters proceed, we learn that Jasper is uncle to Edwin Drood, who is only a few years younger than him. We open with a very striking image of Cloisterham Cathedral that reveals itself to be a vision undergone by Jack Jasper, the lay precentor, as he lays befuddled in a London opium den.
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