The Red Line

The Red Line
The story “The Red Line” by Charles Higson revolves around a woman and two men of whom one is stabbed and another becomes a murderer. All of the characters share the feeling of displacement. They all feel different from other people.
The first character we meet, the Bob Seeger imitator, feel that he is different from others in his appearance and better than others when it comes to performance. “when he looked out of the window he could see people. Ugly people.”. He thinks that people with all their hairand imperfection are ugly and he feels that these people are ruining London. “He hated these people.”, he has so much despair for them that he wants to get rid of them.
The next character we meet is Berto who moved from Venice to London for a woman he’s fallen in love with. As he comes to London he finds it “vast and confusing. Not like Venice.”, he misses his home and feel like a stranger in the great city of London. He has a really hard time speaking and every time he tries asking someone for help that one “simply laughed and shook his head.”, he can’t even open his mouth without being ridiculed.
At last we meet the scared woman Denise, who believe that “Every time you left your flat you were a potential victim.”. She is in constant fear of getting harmed; she believes that there isn’t anyone who won’t hurt her. As she tries reaching out for understanding of her fear she is misunderstood and laughed at. “She’d tried talking to Neil about her fears, but as usual, he’d been completely unsympathetic.”, “She’d told them about it in the woman’s group tonight and they’d all laughed.”, not from her boyfriend nor from her woman’s group can she find comfort or the least advise.
The fear they each have is of different degree. The first mans feeling of displacement is so extreme that he ends up killing another man. While Berto’s discomfort just adds to his craving of going home. The woman’s might be the most extreme since she is the one ending up clueless of what to do on the street in a world where every step is a step closer to getting harmed.

In my paper I’ve used the text tools: characterization, analysis of the characters and comparison of them.