Tom Brennan Character Profile
Characters in ‘The Story of Tom Brennan’ and how they deal with aspects of growing up or transitions into new phases of life and a broader world.
Character: TOM BRENNAN
Experience encountered | Growth, Change or other consequences as a result of the experience | Key quotes | Language identification and analysis | Car accident | Tom wants his old life back prior to the accident and he sees the accident as the end of his life as he knew it. He loses his sense of identity and sense of family in particular.Feels guilty and ashamed about the irrevocable consequences his brother’s irresponsibility had for other people and their familiesRetreats into a depressed state which feels empty and black. | p.5 Thinking about past Australia days‘I wanted to be back home having a Barbie, Having our normal Australia Day. Our Brennan Australia Day, the way we always did.’P15 Preparing to leave for the touch football match ‘I sat there playing with my socks, trying to shut down the bad thoughts that always surfaced and suffocated any hope I had of getting my life back.’p. 76 When Tom first sees the car accident he thinks ‘As Snorter steered the Statesman around that last bend, I was still me, Tom Brennan – Year Eleven, middle child, happy, free, no fuss type of bloke. …But as we turned the corner…everything I thought I knew about who I was and who the Brennans were changed forever.When Tom thinks about Fin p.150 ‘..Fin would never be free, and that was too enormous to swallow.’And p.195 ‘I Couldn’t hate Fin, but at the moment it was hard not to. The debt was overwhelming.’p.23 Just before playing touch football on Australia Day he thinks ‘I was like one of those drum-playing rabbits you see on a TV commercial. Except they’d forgotten to put the super-charged batteries in me so I was on the downhill slide. I could feel the exhaustion creeping into the back of my neck. I hadn’t even got near a ball and already I felt like doing the bolt back to the cave.’ Andafter Tom eats
Character: TOM BRENNAN
Experience encountered | Growth, Change or other consequences as a result of the experience | Key quotes | Language identification and analysis | Car accident | Tom wants his old life back prior to the accident and he sees the accident as the end of his life as he knew it. He loses his sense of identity and sense of family in particular.Feels guilty and ashamed about the irrevocable consequences his brother’s irresponsibility had for other people and their familiesRetreats into a depressed state which feels empty and black. | p.5 Thinking about past Australia days‘I wanted to be back home having a Barbie, Having our normal Australia Day. Our Brennan Australia Day, the way we always did.’P15 Preparing to leave for the touch football match ‘I sat there playing with my socks, trying to shut down the bad thoughts that always surfaced and suffocated any hope I had of getting my life back.’p. 76 When Tom first sees the car accident he thinks ‘As Snorter steered the Statesman around that last bend, I was still me, Tom Brennan – Year Eleven, middle child, happy, free, no fuss type of bloke. …But as we turned the corner…everything I thought I knew about who I was and who the Brennans were changed forever.When Tom thinks about Fin p.150 ‘..Fin would never be free, and that was too enormous to swallow.’And p.195 ‘I Couldn’t hate Fin, but at the moment it was hard not to. The debt was overwhelming.’p.23 Just before playing touch football on Australia Day he thinks ‘I was like one of those drum-playing rabbits you see on a TV commercial. Except they’d forgotten to put the super-charged batteries in me so I was on the downhill slide. I could feel the exhaustion creeping into the back of my neck. I hadn’t even got near a ball and already I felt like doing the bolt back to the cave.’ Andafter Tom eats