Forever Goes Down
... the town, threatening the place with their shifting weight.’ The dunes are ‘threatening’, ‘humped’ at the edge of the town. They are described as if they have the intent to cause harm, separating the girl and her home. The symbolic representation of the dunes as a kind of prison emphasises the girls unhappiness and isolation, and we as readers feel sorry for her. The reader is asked to empathise with the girl: how would the reader feel in this position? The characterisation in this story is used to make the reader dislike the mother. The author clearly uses characterisation to make the reader feel hatred towards her: ‘She admitted to the girl she had not wanted to wake her when she was on fire.’ Therefore the reader can clearly see that the mother wants the girl to feel regret and guilt over the mothers scarring. A normal mother wouldn’t put her child in this position. This influence on the daughter has caused the reader to feel sympathy for the daughter. . It also shows the mother may be mentally ill. Examples such as the one mentioned do not make you think highly of the mother’s character. The mother’s negative construction is important for the story as without it readers wouldn’t understand why the daughter is so depressed and stressed. This text uses multiple settings to show the girls feelings. All of these disparate settings have one underlying commonality: the girl’s danger is being communicated to us through them. The island is the most pronounced of these. ‘…on the packed sand scrub and limestone monoliths offered little shelter.’ There is ‘no shelter’ for this girl anywhere – she is isolated and vulnerable. The desolation of the island combined with Winton’s subsequent description of the crushed bones and eggs of the birds leads to a feeling of despair in the reader. The sy...