Daniel Seebach 1.F

English Assignment – Claims
Claim 1: Lesley Glaister shows us one of the most malicious kinds of violence which is psychological violence.

“He has never actually harmed her, not physically. He has simply terrorized her.” (p. 83. L.25)
Lesley Glaister referrers to other types of violence, which can be far more severe than physically violence in some ways. That is psychological violence which Marjorie suffers from, one example is because Mick continuously does whatever he wants, and put Marjorie down whenever she tries to say anything related to his disturbing behavior. (P.83 l.36-39) “…. Better put the poor bleeder out of its misery then, he said almost amiably”. (P.84 l.25-39)
He first “try” to help, but that only does it much worse, he acts honest, but then he switch into the evil provocative person, he overstepped the mark when he started asking how much it was worth and even though he did that, he went further ahead - far beyond the mark. Just when you think he couldn’t make it any worse he asks Marjorie if he should put one of her precious fish out of its misery with a smile on his face. After what he does with the fish Marjorie loses all strength because of the mental tormenting.

Claim 2: Lesley Glaister manifests the setting in order to get a perspective from a fish tank.

"The opposite wall of her room is also glass, window glass." (p. 81 l.5) She feels she's been watched from the outside world. Such as fish is being watched constantly, and isolated from everything. “Her mouth gaped open as if she was downing in air” (p.85 l.1). Mick killed one of Marjorie’s irreplaceable fish, and then Marjorie starts to act just as a fish, and she is being shown as this fish drowning in the air, helplessly far away from everyone’s reach. “There was no need. She had little spyhole in her door, a tiny glass bubble. When she’d peered through, she’d seen quite clearly that it was Mick” (p.84 l.13-15) Marjorie sees Mick as a bubble as they were in the clear water, when this takes place she is far more calm that usual (“there was no need”) that is because in her consiness (selvbevidsthed) she is in fact in the water which calms her down.

Claim 3: Lesley Glaister uses a lot of symbols in order to show us the environment from an animal perspective.
“Mick is a predator, and Marjorie his prey” (p.83. l.15), here Lesley Glaister describes the two characters, in order to get the environment from an animal perspective. Mick’s characteristics are identical to that of a predator, he won’t stop provoke Marjorie until he would achieve his goal which is hurting the prey to an extreme extent.
“All she knows is the fear he brought her, and the fear he left behind, dripping from the glass like condensation.”(p .83. l.17-18). Mick is again being labeled as this predator, which spreads fear to everyone around him, and as a replacement for dripping blood like a predator from the animal environment, he is instead dripping the fear he left behind, which indicates he is to some extent “bloodthirsty”.

Claim 4: Marjorie’s flashback shows us how her life is built up around it.
“Once, as a girl, she had been taken to the zoo for a birthday treat. The thing she liked best, better than the elephants or the tiger, was the formicary.”(p81.l9). When she was in the zoo with her mother looking at the ants we get the impression that Marjorie is very isolated because she likes a formicary (formicary is basically animals in a box) which is very uncommon for children. It makes her agoraphobia and her dread of people seem more penetrating.
“The ants lived out their busy live in a box…. Marjorie had said on the way home “The ants are just like people””. (P.82. l1-2 and 9-10). Already there she thought of the world of this box with a lot of people just minding their own business and not caring about anything else if it wasn’t related to them. Previous reading she says that “…she sees tiny busy cars, the movement of miniature people down below. The people are featureless so far away” she nearly has the same opinion as a kid.