Ash
Who am I? A question many has asked themselves upon realizing that their life is a routine day in and day out. There is a growing tendency in the western civilization for marriages to dissolve. Self-fulfillment is in the high seat. We are no longer bound by the traditional view upon marriage and the traditional family life. Another problem probably adding to the aforementioned is the increased focus on identity and following it the growing number of identity crises. In the text ASH by Roddy Doyle from May 24 2010 we stumble upon two troubled brothers Kevin and Mick. Mick tries to establish a life for himself after a ruined marriage, and Kevin finds himself in a situation where his marriage is about to be poured out the drain like sour milk.
The story unfolds chronically with a third person character-focaliser narrator with Kevin’s point of view. The text is dominated by short sentences and direct speech. The effect of this being that there is created a feeling of action and constant movement in the story. One could even argue that this text has a home-out-home composition based on the protagonist Kevin’s different emotional states throughout the story. At the start of the story Kevin’s problem is made, and the middle and most of the text is treating how he deals with this problem, and finally in the end the problem resolves and he is at his normal emotional state.
The protagonist Kevin is a middle-aged man. He is not a man of action on the contrary he makes no choices at all he ponders whether to take action but never does (p. 6 ll. 21-24). He is beside himself and confused, and he does not know how his identity is without Ciara. This is shown where he looks into the mirror and cannot see himself only emptiness which he feels without Ciara. Another thing that shows that he is beside himself is the incident, where he looks at their accordion file with their