Reading in the dark, Seamus Dean Chapter six

Résumé du document

The chapter is from the third part of the novel and it is sixth chapter which runs from page 225 to page 227. The extract, as the title suggests, is dedicated to the narrator's father. The narrator describes in the previous chapter the failed relationship with his mother with whom he can no longer communicate because of the family secrets. She uses "low-intensity warfare" and in order to calm her down, he promises her that he will leave town. In the chapter we are studying, we can infer three main points. The first is 'a father and son relationship', the second is 'facts and fiction' and the third is dedicated to 'a painful quest'. The narrator wanted to discover things, but he realizes that he cannot break years of silence. He comes to know how difficult it is to confront a new vision of the world in light of a past that actually shadows it. Even if it is painful, he accepts the status of outcast.

Extraits

[...] Reading in the dark, Seamus Dean Chapter six The chapter is located in the third part of the novel, it is chapter six which runs from page 225 to page 227. That extract, as the title suggests, is devoted to the narrator's father and it is the next-to-last chapter of the novel. The narrator describes in the previous chapter the failed relationship with his mother with whom he can no longer communicate because of family secrets. She uses “low-intensity warfare” and in order to calm her down, he promises her he will leave town. [...]

[...] -When he says father”, it's like the beginning of a letter he will never send to him; he'll never be able to tell him all he knows. -He tries to collect events in order to obtain a coherent whole but the essential is lacking. The must be communication between father and son. His mother puts her finger to her lips, making him understand he must respect silence; she forbids him to communicate with his father and expels him from the family. -There's is a conflict in the narrator's mind. [...]

[...] b-Facts and fiction: a blurred frontier -He must rebuild his father's past with "bribes”. He uses the words “dead parents” and “vanished older brother”. His ancestors are like ghosts which haunt him. We may wonder, “What is reality? What is imaginary? Where is the frontier between them? How may one rebuild reality with bribes, silence and dead people?” The raw material may be perverted. The narrator wants to rebuild his family's history, but he faces the problem of oral tradition. He understands the power of words: Words cannot perfectly reflect reality. [...]

[...] He must keep a distance; it is paradoxical because loving someone means being close to that person. The narrator, however, must go away. First, he keeps a respectful distance from his father, and then, it is a geographical removal, he moves to Belfast. The narrator is condemned to avoid his father in order to protect him from discovering family secrets. 2-Facts and fiction a-The importance of reality -The narrator is in pursuit of his family's history. It becomes a real obsession for him; he uses the word "haunting" which has two meanings. [...]

[...] solution presents itself to the narrator. To escape reality, he moves to another town and notices that dates begin to become "confused and muddled”; he even wonders if he has not dreamt. Reality versus imagination: the limits are blurred. -The narrator knows how important reality is. For instance, he wanted to pretend that he had failed in his exam but when he sees his father, he cannot joke; he refuses to distort reality and truth. Lies can have severe consequences for an individual. [...]