The short story written by Shirley Golden in 2012, ”The false moon” shows us a boy called Matt who has a hard time finding his way, but can a shout for help and a false moon lead him in the right direction?
The struggle of finding oneself must be one of the most important themes in the short story. It shows a boy’s journey at finding his identity “I’m an explorer, alone, on the brink of new worlds” (p. 4, l. 148), he is searching new widths to find and create his identity, but without anyone to lead him “I’ve fallen in a void with no points of steering” (p. 4, l. 147), but during the story he finds a lodestar, a false moon. The story shows independency and how it is taking care of yourself, while you are growing up and shows that sometimes a little guidance and help can take you close to finding yourself. Another theme is change, how things always can change to the better even when you expect it at least “I’m going to be different from now on” (p. 4, l. 137).
In the short story we meet Matt, who has to be an independent boy and take care of him self “By the time she rolls in, I’m usually asleep”. (p. 1, l. 2), but he is actually in need of someone to take responsibility for him. The narrator is very suspicious and does not trust people because of his mother and how she has treated him “Is it bullshit? Probably” (p. 4, l. 138), he does not trust that there is good in people anymore. He is different from the other kids in his class “which barred me from the rest” (p. 2, l. 43) and is a rebel who does not care about much, especially not school “Next day I suffered registration” (p. 1, l. 21). His carelessness can be explained by the fact that the relationship between him and his mother is bad and deficient “It’s probably bullshit, with her you can never tell” (p. 1, l. 12), but we see a change in the narrator during the story. He starts to
