The Thing About December
Narrative Situation and Character Construction in Donal Ryan's “The Thing about December"
“It could remind you that you were a useless, orphaned spastic.” (Page 56). This statement of Johnsey Cunliffe shows his very poor sense of himself, which occurs very often throughout Donal Ryan’s novel “The Thing About December”. Within my paper I want to discuss how the narrative situation in the novel influences our perception of Johnsey’s character and if we should see him in the way he does see himself. Furthermore, I want to think about why the author chose this particular way to tell the story. On this basis, I will commence with a theoretical overview to clarify the narrative situation. To do that, I will focus on Michael Meyers work “English
and American Literatures”. In the following I am going to analyze Johnsey’s self-perception and I will try to find out where this has its seeds in. In this part I’m going to focus briefly on the effects that overprotection by his parents from childhood on and later bullying in school and on the street seem to have on Johnsey. In the main body I want to deal with the way the reader gets to know Johnsey through inner monologues. We are not able to learn much about him from what he does because he never really takes action or stands up for himself. My main claim here is that through choosing an internal focalization the author
“It could remind you that you were a useless, orphaned spastic.” (Page 56). This statement of Johnsey Cunliffe shows his very poor sense of himself, which occurs very often throughout Donal Ryan’s novel “The Thing About December”. Within my paper I want to discuss how the narrative situation in the novel influences our perception of Johnsey’s character and if we should see him in the way he does see himself. Furthermore, I want to think about why the author chose this particular way to tell the story. On this basis, I will commence with a theoretical overview to clarify the narrative situation. To do that, I will focus on Michael Meyers work “English
and American Literatures”. In the following I am going to analyze Johnsey’s self-perception and I will try to find out where this has its seeds in. In this part I’m going to focus briefly on the effects that overprotection by his parents from childhood on and later bullying in school and on the street seem to have on Johnsey. In the main body I want to deal with the way the reader gets to know Johnsey through inner monologues. We are not able to learn much about him from what he does because he never really takes action or stands up for himself. My main claim here is that through choosing an internal focalization the author