...Anna Hope A Gap of sky The short story, A Gap of Sky, by the British writer, Anna Hope, deals with a young girl who find herself alone in the freedom of postmodern society. She is one out of many British youngsters who are in an environment with drugs, alcohol and addiction. The story is told by a third-person narrator with an inner view to the main character’s thoughts. The main character’s personality influences the language. The lines are short, and written as a stream of conscience. This leaves the impression that the main character is a confused person. One thought leaves to another which leaves to another. In the text it is only the main characters point of view and therefor the text itself is not very reliable. The main character’s name is Ellie. She is 19 years old and lives in the big city, London. Over 18 and away from her parents, Ellie is left to make her own decisions. But it has been her parents’ decision that she needed an education, and she has therefore gone to London to attend UCL . Ellie is a party girl. She wakes up from a wild night and cannot remember much. She does not only drink, but use drugs as well. She is lonely, and drugs are her way of escaping the loneliness and emptiness she feels when the night is over. Ellie’s confident and hope of a bright future does not exist. She is a divided girl caught between her parents’ expectations, social obligations and the many temptations in the big city. She escapes from her obligations and the expectations...
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...Anna Hope's short story "A Gap of Sky". A part of your essay must focus on narrative technique and the importance of the city setting. A Gab of Sky - essay To be young is the greatest thing on earth, especially when you have a lot of friends, do well in school, and remember to relax and enjoy life. In this short story Anna Hope tells us about a young girl, Ellie. She takes pleasure in life by using drugs in her everyday life. Ellie is a girl who was sent to college by her parents, nothing she really wanted, but something she had to. She dosen’t like being there, and she has the thought of running away, but something inside her tells her to stay. We are told that the night before she went to a party where she got very drunk and took a lot of drugs. She thinks the night through and she kind a remembers it all, however, she was under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Suddenly she recalls that she have to make an essay and have to print it out, but she dosen’t have any ink, and therefore she have to run out to get some. Ellie is a nineteen year old teenager who lives in the heart of London, where her college is. Apparently she lives at the college and not at home with her parents. Ellie blame her parents for her being there, and she even calls it “this bloody course”. She stays up late and party, smoke crack pipe and do drugs. She dosen’t take her course serious and she really just want to hang out with her friends and be free. Throughout the short story we are practically...
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...believes to be a consequence of the over development of technology through two short stories that will be described in this essay. The two stories have many differences as well as similarities. However, all together they both explain what life could be like if people let technology “take over”. In the story “There Will Come Soft Rains”, Ray Bradbury writes about a house that has survived a nuclear war....
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...Grove In the short story ”Grove”, there is written by Erin Brooks Worley, we read about a first-person-narrator, that is a girl. She has some confrontations with a guy and his parents. The story takes place in Florida, in a town called Frostproof. Here lives the guy, but the author never mention his name. It is always I, he and she in the story. Here he lives nearby his parents. We also do not know the names of the parents. The guy has a strange relationship to a girl, there is the first-person-narrator. First you think, she is his girlfriend, but then she says in the text: “I never asked him to leave his wife”, and later in the text the first-person-narrator says: “He likes kids, I say. And his wife can’t have them”. Therefore, they are trying to have a kid, because his wife cannot make kids, so I think that they do not have a relationship to each other. The guy’s mother seems not to like the first-person-narrator, but he’s father like her. The girl seems very insecure; while she is apologizing a lot, and the guy says that, she has to stop apologize so much. The girl is also an alcoholic, and one night she sneaks out on the bathroom, where she is hiding some whiskey in a shampoo bottle. She is trying to conceal, that she has a drinking problem, but the guy knows that she is a alcoholic. He get also very upset, when she hides liquor in his parents bathroom. One day when the girl are alone with the guy’s mother in the living room, the mother says to the girl, that she...
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...“Zero Hour”, “Last Night of the World”, and “Kaleidoscope” are three short stories in Bradbury’s frame novel that represent the theme that ignoring opportunities and little things can harm someone. The later part of Ray Bradbury’s science fiction story “Zero Hour” shows that ignoring little things and small opportunities can lead to harm. In the story Mink, a young girl, is playing a game where kids under the age of nine simulate about alien abduction. Mink tells her mom about the game and her mom is skeptical: ‘“Martins invading earth. Well not exactly Martians. They’re- I don’t know. From up.”’ Mink’s mom said, ‘“and inside”’ (Bradbury 64). Motioning the fact Mink is making all this up. For example, Mrs. Morris, Mink’s mom, then calls her friend in Scranton...
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...figure it out? Sometimes all you need is a little something that will show you the answer – Motivation leads you to the right thing to do! This is some of the Topics that we are dealing with in the short story called A Gap of Sky. A Gap of Sky is a short story written by Anna Hope and published in 2008. It is about a 19-year-old girl struggling against the inner voice of her, which is telling her to cut out her studies and have fun instead. By having fun I mean drinking and doing drugs. Because that’s what Ellie is good at. She has been sent to London by her parents to study, but she is not taking it as serious as her parents are expecting of her to do, because she has been partying all night and can’t remember much. She wakes up and starts stressing because of an essay that she has to write, about Virginia Woolf. But she needs printer ink, so she goes out into the world searching for printer ink. On her way searching for printer ink she experiences a lot. The 19-year-old Ellie is the main character. Her parents have sent her to London to study but she doesn’t really care, instead she drinks and does a lot of drugs. But at the same time it seems like Ellie has two sides. Because she’s also stressing about the essay that she still needs to do and she’s okay staying up all night doing it as...
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...is a little something that will show you the answer – Motivation leads you to the right thing to do! This is some of the Topics that we are dealing with in the short story called A Gap of Sky. A Gap of Sky is a short story written by Anna Hope and published in 2008. It is about a 19-year-old girl struggling against the inner voice of her, which is telling her to cut out her studies and have fun instead. By having fun I mean drinking and doing drugs. Because that’s what Ellie is good at. She has been sent to London by her parents to study, but she is not taking it as serious as her parents are expecting of her to do, because she has been partying all night and can’t remember much. She wakes up and starts stressing because of an essay that she has to write, about Virginia Woolf. But she needs printer ink, so she goes out into the world searching for printer ink. On her way searching for printer ink she experiences a lot. The 19-year-old Ellie is the main character. Her parents have sent her to London to study but she doesn’t really care, instead she drinks and does a lot of drugs. But at the same time it seems like Ellie has two sides. Because she’s also stressing about the essay that she still needs to do and she’s okay staying up all night doing it as long as she does “she’s going to have to work through the night, but it’s fine” – inside of her...
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...Owl By Jackie Kay Is it possible to live in the past back when you were ten when you really are in the middle age? Is it healthy to be stuck in the childhood and not wanting to move on? That is what the main character in Jackie Kay’s short story Owl does. This essay will focus on the narrative technique, the contrasts and what the title can symbolize. The short story is written by a first person narrator which in this case means that the story is told through one of the main characters, Barn’s/Anita’s, eyes. It is written in past tense and is focused on Barn’s angle of the story and the reader experiences the events through her. The reader is for the reason of that trusting the narrator because one is made to feel closer and friendlier with the narrator because the reader and the narrator look through the same eyes. This dominates not only the point of view but also the plot. Some of the text is a flashback from Barn’s and Tawn’s childhood where we get to know them as children. There are many contrasts in the short story Owl. One of them is the contrast between being a child and a grown up. The story is divided in two. The first part of the text focuses on the childhood of Barn and Tawn when they were nine and ten years old. The second part takes place when they are adults and in their forties. They are stuck in the past even though they have grown up: “And maybe after that we could go back to our names, to calling ourselves our real names. (Though I doubt we’d...
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...associated with freedom, exploration, desire, and choices which concern the future of the individual. Being young is not always easy. The parents are now in the background and, therefore, young people enjoy the freedom which comes with the parents’ withdrawal. Although, having fun and being free is part of youth, there are responsibilities and expectations, and these must not be neglected. But real freedom and responsibilities go together. The short story ‘A Gap of Sky’ by Anna Hope deals with issues which may be associated with being young in a big city trapped in an environment where drugs and “freedom” without responsibility are part of everyday life. The main character, Ellie, wakes up on a Monday afternoon realizing that she has to write an essay for the next day. She has been out all night, high on drugs and alcohol, and she is close to being kicked out of the university that she attends. In the short story Ellie goes through a mental journey, and the outcome of this is a new Ellie who doesn’t take everything for granted, and she realizes that life has so much to give her if she gives something back. Ellie is 19 years old and lives in the heart of London. She might live at a college as she has to walk down a corridor to get to the toilet. She studies at a university even though she doesn’t take it seriously. It was her parents who made her attend, and she has already had an extension. She doesn’t do her schoolwork and the past year of university feels like “sludge”...
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...A visit to his parents The short story “A visit to his parents” was published in 2006. The story takes place in Frostproof in Florida, where a woman is visiting her parents-in-law with her boyfriend. The main theme in the story is: “things aren't always what they seem”. Other themes are drinking problems and love despite flaws. Frostproof sounds like a perfect place and when the boyfriend’s father let them try his two motorbikes, you’ll get the impression that everything is perfect. The parents-in-law live at a nice place with perfect surroundings and the two motorbikes indicate that the family is quite wealthy. But this perfect picture ends fast. On the second day of their visit the boyfriend crashes on his motorbike. She holds the horn down so his parents will come out and help, but he pushes her hand away and tells her that holding the horn down just will scare them. She says that she is sorry and he replies: “You can stop apologizing. I’ve heard it enough”. The fact that he says he has heard it too much, shows that he probably has had a lot of disappointments in his life before and therefore he has heard those words many times before. At night when everybody is asleep she sneaks outside to drink whiskey of her shampoo bottle. She uses a shampoo bottle instead of a real whiskey bottle to hide her abuse. But at the same time she says that she doesn’t’ care if her boyfriend detect it. On the one hand she hides it, but on the other hand she doesn’t. In the morning...
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...year old girl from Karachi had yearned for the day where she would be able to express her love for Mihir Jham. They had been together ever since the beginning of their college year, though this had been a secret kept from her parents. The idea of Muslim girl marrying a Hindu boy would never be deemed acceptable or appropriate by them. When she finally garnered the courage to request them to fulfill her desire, her parents were aghast. Isra’s father was taken aback, and questioned her intentions. “How could you even think of such a thing? We are Muslims, and marrying you off to Hindu boy is considered haram.” A similar response was received from her mother, when she reacted; “Do you even know of the consequences of such an act? We will be shunned by the Muslim society, and moreover, we will lose all our respect.” As a result, Isra was denied any further meeting with the love of her life, and was bound to her room until further notice. Isra was devastated, and ran to her room in despair. She knew for her parent’s sake and their family’s reputation that she had to cut all ties with Mihir. In an attempt to explain the unfolding situation, she sent him an email citing reasons for why they could no longer be together. For the first time in years, her parents kept a tab on her, right from what she did, where she went, and more importantly with whom she socialized with. Isra experienced an invasion of private space, and no longer felt comfortable with her surroundings. She began to...
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...A Gap of sky The short story, A Gap of Sky, by the British writer, Anna Hope, deals with a young girl who find herself alone in the freedom of postmodern society. She is one out of many British youngsters who are in an environment with drugs, alcohol and addiction. The story is told by a third-person narrator with an inner view to the main character’s thoughts. The main character’s personality influences the language. The lines are short, and written as a stream of conscience. This leaves the impression that the main character is a confused person. One thought leaves to another which leaves to another. In the text it is only the main characters point of view and therefor the text itself is not very reliable. The main character’s name is Ellie. She is 19 years old and lives in the big city, London. Over 18 and away from her parents, Ellie is left to make her own decisions. But it has been her parents’ decision that she needed an education, and she has therefore gone to London to attend UCL . Ellie is a party girl. She wakes up from a wild night and cannot remember much. She does not only drink, but use drugs as well. She is lonely, and drugs are her way of escaping the loneliness and emptiness she feels when the night is over. Ellie’s confident and hope of a bright future does not exist. She is a divided girl caught between her parents’ expectations, social obligations and the many temptations in the big city. She escapes from her obligations and the expectations when she...
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...Lasse N. Møller 3.a A Gap of Sky The short story “A Gap of Sky” is written by Anna Hope. She writes about a young girl in a huge dilemma between school and party and drugs. She uses special techniques were she uses the city to explain how Ellie, which is the main character, feel inside. Today in these days young people are vulnerable pressure. You have to do everything right if you want to be accepted. When you read the story you get very confused because of the technique. She describes every thought Ellie has. Ellie is a girl like all others - You challenge against yourself just to see the consequences. For young people it is important to get lots of friends and party – maybe more than a lot. But the most significant thing about life is to get a long and good education to secure your future. Everyday there is a massive pressure on you, which occasionally can be difficult to handle. And we see how tough it can be of not living up to your parents’ expectations and how you can be afraid of living your personal life. The story is written in, in medias res, which throw us into the story. The story written by Anna Hope is about a young girl called Ellie. In the beginning of the story we see Ellie were she just lay in her bed because of the rigours last night. Last night was a badly sight of a young girl drinking and doing drugs. The beginning of the story the narrator uses swear words like “fuck” and “shit”, which give us a clear feeling about her situation. The words help...
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...associated with freedom, exploration, desire, and choices which concern the future of the individual. Being young is not always easy. The parents are now in the background and, therefore, young people enjoy the freedom which comes with the parents’ withdrawal. Although, having fun and being free is part of youth, there are responsibilities and expectations, and these must not be neglected. Though real freedom and responsibilities go together. The short story ‘A Gap of Sky’ by Anna Hope deals with issues which may be associated with being young in a big city trapped in an environment where drugs and “freedom” without responsibility are part of everyday life. The main character, Ellie, wakes up on a Monday afternoon realizing that she has to write an essay for the next day. She has been out all night, high on drugs and alcohol, and she is close to being kicked out of the university that she attends. In the short story Ellie goes through a mental journey, and the outcome of this is a new Ellie who doesn’t take everything for granted, and she realizes that life has so much to give her if she gives something back. Ellie is 19 years old and lives in the heart of London. She might live at a college as she has to walk down a corridor to get to the toilet. She studies at a university even though she doesn’t take it seriously. It was her parents who made her attend, and she has already had an extension. She doesn’t do her schoolwork and the past year of university feels like “sludge”...
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...relationship influences the child a lot. But happy married couples, don't always stay happy. In Claire Anderson-Wheeler's short story “Vernissage”, a child lives his life, oblivious to the change in his parent's relationship, until he 'happens' to overhear a private conversation. The story, vernissage is about a family which contains a mother, a father and a son. The son - called Alex is the main character, and we're following the family through his eyes. Beside that we see out of his eyes, we also can hear/read what the boy is thinking. The story starts out in-media-res when the boy, Alex, is picked up at school by his mother. On their way home Alex questions his mother about the bag she's got in the car as well. And then the whole thing starts. Because the dress has been bought by Alex's mother because of the vernissage - which is a art exhibition, which her and her husband are going to later that night. Even though Alex's parents will not be home at night, Alex have the company of a babysitter named Anne-Marie. But Alex does not like Anne-Marie because she calls him Ally, which in Alex opinion was a girl's name. Another thing about Anne-Marie that Alex don't like is that there was fat under her eyes. Alex is a young boy - I would guess around the age of 9 because he can fit under the bed. He is not a common young boy despite that he lives with his parents. Which we do not hear much about other than they're heading towards the vernissage in the evening. Alex is a boy who thinks...
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