character sketch of governor and jackson in evan tries an o level.

In the play we see that the Governor an intelligent officer but his overconfidence was his undoing. He is also portrayed as a hyper vigilant man who took utmost care to see that during the examination he would not be fooled by Evans who had escaped thrice before. We see examples of his intelligence at many points in the play. He understands that Evans was not really interested in learning German when Evans does not understand the basic German expression, “Guten Gluck.” He is suspicious about the genuineness of the call made to him from the Examination Board and makes a return call to confirm it. He is alert enough to think about frisking the invigilator, which leads to the finding of the rubber tube. It is the Governor who discovered the secret message at the back of the question paper, the fact that the real McLeery had never come to the prison and that it was Evans who had escaped from the prison as the injured invigilator. It is also he that traces Evans to Hotel Golden Lion and arrests him. In spite of all this it was the Governor’s pride and over-confidence that saw him failing to prevent Evans’ final escape. The Governor had acquired a little bit of German earlier and was proud of that. On deciphering the secret message to trace Evans, he became over enthusiastic and complacent so as not to take along with him enough force to arrest the latter at the hotel. Later when he traps Evans at the hotel, he became over confident and consequently less careful about keeping Evans under high security, which gave Evans the opportunity to escape.
Jackson was the senior prison officer on D Wing, and he and Evans had become warm enemies. Though he behaved as a tough war veteran very strict with Evans, buried somewhere was a tiny core of compassion. This Evans used to convince him to let him retain his bobble hat by saying that it was his lucky charm. Jackson managed to take away everything that might have helped Evans injure himself, except this hat, which was a crucial item for his escape.