No Angel – Bernie McGill
The loss of a close relative is something one will never be prepared of. It is different from individual to individual how they handle the loss of a dear one. Some wants to keep the memories of their loss others want to forget. This is a painful time to go through alone, it is therefore very important to have some family and friends around you when these kinds of tragedies take place. The loss of beloved ones can be so tremendously painful that you might still see them in your daily life despite the fact that they are already dead. This paradox and theme is presented in the short story No Angel written by Bernie McGill in 2011. The short story is from the anthology The Best British Short Stories 2011 and it takes place in contem-porary Northern Ireland.
In the short story No Angel we are introduced to the protagonist Annie. Annie is a typical middle-aged Irish girl, who is the only living member left of the family. Growing up she has faced a lot of tragedies, with her 3-year-old younger brother being killed, her mother dying of grief six months later and lastly her father dying due to dysfunctional lungs. The pain of los-ing her entire family has …show more content…
The use of flash-backs has the effect that it gives a full picture of the theme to understand the main character and her problems dealing with her loss. The short story is written in medias res, where the story starts in an important and central event. In this event, which is a flashback in time, the protagonist is meeting her father for the first time after his death. He appears in the bathroom talking with Annie. In the short story there are some streams of consciousness, we as readers are taking inside the mind of the character to follow her thought patterns, the effect is that it allows the reader to get to know the character a bit better. Due to the streams of conscious-ness the chronological order has been
The loss of a close relative is something one will never be prepared of. It is different from individual to individual how they handle the loss of a dear one. Some wants to keep the memories of their loss others want to forget. This is a painful time to go through alone, it is therefore very important to have some family and friends around you when these kinds of tragedies take place. The loss of beloved ones can be so tremendously painful that you might still see them in your daily life despite the fact that they are already dead. This paradox and theme is presented in the short story No Angel written by Bernie McGill in 2011. The short story is from the anthology The Best British Short Stories 2011 and it takes place in contem-porary Northern Ireland.
In the short story No Angel we are introduced to the protagonist Annie. Annie is a typical middle-aged Irish girl, who is the only living member left of the family. Growing up she has faced a lot of tragedies, with her 3-year-old younger brother being killed, her mother dying of grief six months later and lastly her father dying due to dysfunctional lungs. The pain of los-ing her entire family has …show more content…
The use of flash-backs has the effect that it gives a full picture of the theme to understand the main character and her problems dealing with her loss. The short story is written in medias res, where the story starts in an important and central event. In this event, which is a flashback in time, the protagonist is meeting her father for the first time after his death. He appears in the bathroom talking with Annie. In the short story there are some streams of consciousness, we as readers are taking inside the mind of the character to follow her thought patterns, the effect is that it allows the reader to get to know the character a bit better. Due to the streams of conscious-ness the chronological order has been