A Gap of Sky

A gap of sky

Youth is a difficult stage in life, both physically, but also mentally. This can sometimes be very difficult for young people if they are not given the support they need. Age gives certain responsibilities, and it is up to each individual to carry out these burdens. Several important choices are made at this point in life. With all the pressure from ones surroundings, one may feel the need to escape from reality by the use of drugs. This drug abuse could express the protest of responsibility, and the desperation for freedom, which is the case in the short story A Gap Of Sky by Anna Hope written in 2008.

The main character of the short story is called Ellie. She is nineteen years of age, and studies at a university in London. In the story, Ellie is described living in a small room with only her bed and a sink. She has to go through the ‘corridor’ in order to get to the toilets, which suggests that she lives in a college fairly close to her university. Ellie does not take school very seriously. She seems very careless about the fact that her essay is due for the next day, but still desperately wants to complete it. This is due to the fact that she had received a letter (most likely from her professor), threating her that if she doesn’t do her work, she would be removed from the course. ‘’If this lack of application continues we will have no choice but to reconsider your place on the course’’(l. 38 – 40). Ellie describes the letter as ‘stomach-lurching’, which shows us that actually, she does care for her course, even though she would rather spend her time partying. Ellie breaks several college rules and laws when she goes out partying in dangerous territories with the use of drugs. This is a sign of protest against these rules and regulations, which she performs to win her own freedom.

Even though the story reflects Ellie’s thoughts, it is told with at third person narration. The sentences are short, and there is a plentiful use of punctuation. The story includes swearwords like ‘Fuck’ and ‘shit’, which are used several times throughout the story to express Ellie’s dramatic thoughts and also shows the presence of an immature, young minded human. ‘’Good plan. Good, this was good, fine. Coffee plunged, poured, slurped; hot, fuck that’s hot. Anything else? Of course: printer, printer’s out of ink. Student shop too. Fine. Time? Ten minutes to get there. Shit’’(l. 34-36) In this example, we are literally put inside Ellie’s mind. We know exactly what she is thinking and is going to do. We can also see how her thoughts are connected to one other. For example, she thinks of the printer which is out of ink, then about the student shop, which is the place she knows has ink, and finally she thinks of the time, to see if any other shops would be available and so on. We can also as readers, learn about her attitude towards her work at the university.

The story takes place as mentioned in London city, in Ellie’s college and in the streets of London. It is also while Ellie is walking though these streets, that she notices a gap of sky down one of the streets. ‘’She turns left, onto Shaftesbury Avenue, and as she turns there is a gap of sky to her right, an emptiness, a vacancy that she doesn’t remember seeing before, something destroyed, or being built.’’ This part is very essential for the story. Not only is the title ‘A Gap Of Sky’ mentioned here, but this also symbolises something about Ellie’s life. The city can be interpreted as her mind, and the gap as a space inside her mind for opportunities. Her head is closely packed and is mostly full of party and drugs, but there is still this gap of sky, which needs to be filled in. She is not sure if something is being destroyed or being built, this could symbolise her chance of success or failure. The emptiness and vacancy of the gap could be interpreted as the free space, in which she has the opportunity to fill in and do the right thing. Instead, she decides to turn away from this opportunity, and walk down another street to buy drugs. Even though she does that, Ellie is fully aware of what the right thing to do is, ‘‘She will write her essay and that will be a good thing’’. She also knows that her drug abuse is a bad thing, since she wakes up every morning, unconsciously aware that the drugs are very bad for her, but she chooses to ignore this responsibility.

Youth is a difficult time for everyone. Some people require more help than others. Ellie shows a perfect example of someone, who has the choice of success in front of her, but is pulled in another direction, because of her search for freedom. The story starts with Ellie waking up and wanting to write her essay, but she manages to pass through the day and go to bed again, without actually having done any work. Ellie knows which direction is the best for her future, but in the chaos she has created through her protest against rules and laws to fight for her freedom, she has ended up on the verge of slipping off the edge, and into a dark miserable life. The gap of sky symbolises Ellie’s opportunities in life, but instead of filling in the gap, she turns around and misses out on yet an opportunity. Finally, in the end of the story, Ellie finds out a way to fix her problem with the missing printer ink, and decides to write her essay the day after. This leaves us with an open ending, since Ellie is left with this last bit of hope by writing the essay, but there is still the possibility that she the next morning decides to do something other than write her essay.