Rubbish

The novel Trash by Andy Mulligan is set in the horrific conditions of the Behala dumpsite. The conditions that are described would lead outsiders to believe that the people that live on the dumpsite would have noting to live for with little or no personal values. But in fact we find the values of trust, friendship and hope are much stronger in this community than what we see in the supposedly upper societies outside the dumpsite. We see these values in the three characters, Raphael, Gardo and Rat also known as Jun Jun, and how these values influence and develop the characters throughout the novel.

Friendship is introduced into the novel almost from the very beginning. It is through the bonds of friendship that allow the residents of Behala to survive and work together. The story opens with Raphael and Gardo working on the dumpsite where Raphael says in part one chapter one “Gardo’s my partner, and we always work together. He looks after me.” Through this quote we can see Gardo looks on Raphael more than a working partner but as a friend who look after him and this is further emphersized when Raphael says about Gardo in part one chapter two “He’s not my brother but he might as well be….”. And this feeling of friendship is neutral as we see Gardo saying in part one chapter five “Raphael is my best friend…”. We see new friendships grow as Raphael and Gardo reach out to Rat, first to hide to bag and then to unlock the mystery. This is shown when the police take Raphael to the police station and start beating him up to confess as to where the bag was but Raphael took the punishment and faced his fear of death because “he would not give either of them up…”in part two chapter two. We see as the friendships develop the characters develop a loyalty to each other when faced with any danger. We see the three children ultimately turn to Olivia and this was a friend that they had on the dumpsite to assist them to access Gabriel Ondexosjfh. The children did not tell Olivia