Preview

Cal Bernard

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2902 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Cal Bernard
“Cal” by Bernard MacLaverty

For Cal, some of the choices are devastatingly simple - he can work in the abattoir that nauseates him or he can join the dole queue; he can brood on his past or plan a future with Marcella.

Springing out of the fear and violence of Ulster, Cal is a haunting love story in a land where tenderness and innocence can only flicker briefly in the dark.

Plot Summary

Cal is a teenager growing up during the troubles of Northern Ireland. He lives with his father Shamie (both are Catholics) in a town near Belfast in which mainly Protestants live. Cal's mother died when he was 8 years old.

Life there isn't easy for Cal. He is an outsider in the Protestant community and feels constantly threatened. He is unemployed after giving up a job in the abattoir as he “hadn’t a strong enough stomach” for it.

When visiting the local library one day he sees a woman, Marcella. He becomes fascinated with her and his fascination grows when he finds out that this Marcella was connected with an event in Cal’s past.

Cal manages to get a job on Marcella’s mother-in-law’s farm. While working there Cal has the opportunity to spend more time with Marcella and he falls in love with her. However we find out that Cal was involved in the IRA murder of her husband. So Cal is in love with the one person who he can never be with.

Cal and his father are burned out of their house by militant Protestants and Cal starts living on a derelict house on the Morton’s farm. Cal and Marcella spend more time together and they begin a love affair. Marcella does not know about Cal’s past.

Cal tries to separate himself from Crilly, Skeffington, the IRA and the past that haunts him. However they soon catch up with him and Cal is arrested for his involvement in the murder of Marcella’s husband.
Themes

The main themes of the novel are:
Politics of Northern Ireland and “The Troubles”
Violence
Religion
Suffering
Guilt
The book shows the tragic consequences

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Wolffish of Alaska

    • 996 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Wolffish are known to migrate small distances base on a study conducted by Templeman, (1984). The study suggested that they may follow food short distances in order to protect the bait from other fish. Their primary food Ctenophora or Comb Jellies (Concepción González, Xabier Paz, Esther Román and M. Alvárez, 2006) (Figure: 2) are were found most often in the stomachs of Northern Wolffish. Northern Wolffish are distributed over a wide range of depths, from 38 to 1504 m the maximum depth surveyed by Concepción González, Xabier Paz, Esther Román and M. Alvárez (2006). The densest concentrations of fish occurred offshore between 500m and at temperatures ranging from 2 to 5° C. Temperature is an important feature of wolffish habitat. All the species of…

    • 996 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Summary Of Packingtown

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Jonas is stressed so he leaves the family and never says a word. Jurgis is forced to take a job at a fertilizer plant, which happens to be the worst place in all of Packingtown. Jurgis begins drinking to numb the pain of the life he is living. Ona becomes pregnant again and then starts not returning home after work. Jurgis learns that her boss is keeping Ona after work and forcing her to sleep with him. Jurgis attacks her boss and soon after is thrown into jail. Jurgis is given an unfair trial; they didn’t ask him many questions at all. He is sentenced to a month in jail. The family is barely getting by. Jurgis befriends a man in prison named Jack…

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this extract, McCarthy conveys the anticlimax of the protagonist and his son’s arrival at the “Cold. Desolate. Birdless.” environment of the beach. McCarthy juxtaposes the bleakness of the landscape with the boy’s optimism in order to highlight the boy’s inherent goodness.…

    • 645 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “You can tell an artist is excellent when he denies his own perfection.” (Shakespeare 78 -79) Based on the characters Beatrice and Benedick the conflict between the two is that they have trouble expressing their love for each other, throughout the book the foil insult each other until they realize they love one another. In Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare, Benedick serves as the foil character of Beatrice by which Beatrice’s reasonable taste are illuminated through Benedick’s bearing thoughts; thus, compound the twist and conflict to the plot.…

    • 606 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When Liesel finds out the Frau Hermann (The Mayor ) has a library to where she can come over whenever the laundry needs to be done. But when Mrs. Hermann can’t afford the laundry anymore, Liesel gets furious and asks Rudy (Her best friend) to help her steal the books from her library. Later on Max, a boy who Papa promised his mother that he’ll look over him while they are gone. Mama and Papa let max stay with them, and he lives in the basement. The Nazi’s go to the Hubermann’s house for use of protection for the bombing and strike others. But they didn’t find Max, and Max gets really sick and slips into a coma for a few days, and Mama & Papa are worried what to do with his body once he dies. The conflict starts out when Liesel takes The GraveDigger's Handbook. After her mother and her bury her brother for some reason has passed away on the train. After her mother leaving her she goes and lives with her foster parents. Everything was going great till Papa finds the book in her mattress and tells her not to lie and tell the truth about the book.…

    • 281 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Steinbeck illustrates how Cal’s external locus of control motivates him to rely and conform to the expectations and actions of individuals he has idolized. Cal places the ultimate idolization on his father; he believes his father’s love is the greatest trophy in life. All of Cal’s actions revolve around his father’s acceptance, rather than his own desires. Cal is imprisoned by his father’s expectations and therefore cannot advocate or act for his furtherance. After a conversation between Cal and his father where both Cal and Adam open up, Steinbeck describes how happy Cal feels: “He wanted to serve his father, to give him some great gift, to perform some huge good task in honor of his father” (Steinbeck 457). Steinbeck utilizes the word “serve”…

    • 331 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When McCandless decided to “live off the land”, he was also deciding to disassociate himself from his parents; more specifically, his father Walter. When Chris discovered his father’s double life, he was “smoldering anger… harboring his resentment, letting bad feelings build and build” (Krakauer 122). His entire life, his father set high…

    • 976 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Story of Tom Brennan

    • 1243 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Brennans have been through a lot in the novel as they have to come to terms that Toms brother Daniel Brennan had caused the death of two innocent passengers who were popular throughout the community and also paralysing his cousin Fin because he made a mistake by drinking and driving which ultimately leads him to jail and is the major factor of the Brennans leaving Mumbilli due to the constant harassment by the townspeople who they once used to be very close with before the incident. The life that Tom and his family now lead is affected by the prejudice that has forced the family out of their home town Mumbilli and into Tom’s Grandmother’s house in Cogshill. Tom is then made to cope with the inevitable and move ‘into the world.…

    • 1243 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    All over but the Shoutin

    • 1513 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The Bragg family grew up with virtually nothing. The father left the family a number of times, offering no financial assistance and stealing whatever he could before he left. When he was there, he was usually drunk and physically abusive to the mother. He rarely went after the children, but when he did the mother was always there to offer protection. Mr. Bragg's mother's life consisted of working herself to exhaustion and using whatever money she had on the children.…

    • 1513 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cal, who grows up with the name Calliope, is raised as a girl but when he finds out he possesses both male and female parts he decides to change his name and stay the way he is born. When Cal is brought to a doctor because he discovers there is something wrong with his genitalia a surgery is setup to turn Cal into a female. Although Cal was never informed about the surgery, Cal found out on his own and did not approve of the surgery and runs away to San Francisco. Even though he is given the chance to become a girl as he was raised as, Cal is not willing to go forth with the surgery to permanently stay female. He would rather stay with the gender he feels more comfortable with rather than changing to fit the gender he was raised with. When Cal runs away to San Francisco he meets Bob who takes him most of the way to San Francisco and parts ways with him when he reaches San Francisco. After being beaten up Cal decides to call Bob, who gave Cal his number before they parted and Cal then starts working at the strip club owned by Bob. Because of Cal’s condition he is put in an exotic show that gains a lot of popularity in the strip club. While working at the strip club he meets Zora who lets Cal live with them. During the first day at Zora’s, Zora explains how hermaphrodites are both looked…

    • 1486 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Calypso says she is releasing him because she can’t stand to see him so upset. She tells him this so he might change his mind about leaving.…

    • 546 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tale of Two Cities

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages

    3. What do we learn about Carton’s childhood? What does Carton blame for his miserable life?…

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    and never knowing his birth father, he grew up in poverty the oldest of nine children. At age 3, his mother married a factory worker who also was a storefront preacher. Feeling trapped by his troubled relationship with his strict religious stepfather; at a young age…

    • 3872 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Color Purple

    • 1125 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Once Celie is married off she begins her growth of becoming more than just someone to be abused, and to be walked all over. Celie had the bleakest of circumstances when she was growing up, yet she still had some choices and some freedoms, only she didn’t realize this. This realization came slowly from all the women that she meets. First is when she sees a woman with money,…

    • 1125 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Liesel is given up by her mother to Hans and Rosa Hubermann, a married German couple. Along the way to the Hubermanns, Liesel younger brother dies. Hans is a humorous old man that brought joy and comfort to Liesel. Rosa is a mean lady that is very strict and blunt. Hans taught Liesel how to read and Liesel in return fell in love with books. The first book Liesel learned to read was a book that she stole from a gravedigger from her brother's funeral. Liesel became friends with her neighbor named Rudy who fell in love with her. During a book burning ceremony, Liesel realized her parents were victimized for being communists. After the burning, Liesel was then spotted by the mayor's wife stealing a book. Owing a favor to his father, Hans agrees to take in Max who is a Jew and hides him in his basement. Despite the age difference, Max and Liesel became close friends. A neighboring friend of Hans, who is a Jew, is approached by the Nazis and Hans decides to defend him. In the process, Hans's name was taken down for trying to help the Jew. Unfortunately, Max has to leave the Hubermann's house for the reason that they were now in danger because of Han's decision. During an unannounced air raid, Liesel was fortunately writing a story in her basement. While she fell asleep in her basement, her neighborhood was being bombed and everyone on her block including Hans, Rosa, and Rudy was killed. Liesel is the only survivor and goes on to live a long successful…

    • 837 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays