4956126
Description
Mind Map by tgreen1999.tg, updated more than 1 year ago
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Created by tgreen1999.tg
over 8 years ago
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Spies - Stephen
- The central protagonist throughout the novel.
Along with his older narrator.
- However, his older self and his
young are two very dislocated
identities
- Refers to himself as 'the heir to Stephen's
thoughts' - yet he does not seem to be in
possesion of them
- He refers to himself in the 3rd person and has a
vague and unreliable retrospective view on his
earlier childhood life
- Older Stephen even says he would not
recognise himself in photos if it wee not
for the name on the back
- Refers to himself as 'the heir to Stephen's
thoughts' - yet he does not seem to be in
possesion of them
- However, his older self and his
young are two very dislocated
identities
- Stephen is portrayed sympathetically but not
sentimentally by his older self
- Older Stephen invites us to laugh while at
the same time engages with his traumas and
inner struggles
- He refers to himself as the 'undersized
boy with the teapot ears...open-mouthed
and credulous'
- His physical appearance led to
contemporaries teasing him and now
even his older self is teasing him
- He refers to himself as the 'undersized
boy with the teapot ears...open-mouthed
and credulous'
- As a boy Stephen is constantly held
back, dominated and afraid
- 'Im a child again... all the frightening,
half-understood promise of life' - this shows how he
is afraid, even in the very first paragraph of the novel
- Stephen is checked by Keiths
disapproval and by his own fear
of looking foolish
- His fear of being teased
or bullied hold him
back
- Embarrassment: 'which is worse... to be
embarrassed or to be killed'
- 'Im a child again... all the frightening,
half-understood promise of life' - this shows how he
is afraid, even in the very first paragraph of the novel
- The degree to which Stephen is in awe of Keith is never
in question: 'The ways of the Haywards were no more
open to questioning or comprehension than the
domestic arrangements of the Holy Family'
- He refers to Mrs Hayward's 'incomprehensible
niceness' to him, showing how deep his sense
of being unworthy goes.
- The narrator, looking back on life, says that Keith
was 'only the first in a whole series of dominant
figures in my life whose disciple I became'
- He goes on to say 'his authority was entirely
warranted by his intellectual and imaginative
superiority' - which is not true as Kieth can't spell
- he uses his imagination to concoct unbelievably
stories about his families prowess in order to
impress Stephen
- He goes on to say 'his authority was entirely
warranted by his intellectual and imaginative
superiority' - which is not true as Kieth can't spell
- he uses his imagination to concoct unbelievably
stories about his families prowess in order to
impress Stephen
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