Grief And Isolation In Tim Pegler's Five Parts Dead

Tim Pegler, the author of ‘Five Parts Dead’, demonstrates that people will take responsibility for disastrous circumstances, despite it being out of their control. This may be because they have taken part in an ill-advised act as shown with the character Dan. Pegler explores the themes of guilt, grief and isolation and how individuals deal with the loss of someone important and the consequences of their mistake. Dan lost his friends, and he blames himself because he thinks he could have prevented it. In this situation, Dan is partially guilty for what happened to his friends because in hindsight he could have done more and he wished he did. However, the pressure he received from them and the fact that he never wanted to go into the car, shows …show more content…
Dan chooses to isolate himself from his family and the people who care for him, because he doesn’t want his them to see the guilt that he feels. Throughout the novel Dan begins to slowly open up about everything. Dan chooses to stay isolated because he’s scared of all the judgement that he may receive, even though most of what happened was not even his fault. In the novel, the family goes to an island for a holiday an island that’s far away from civilization in other words isolated. The island represents Dan and how he is feeling “I’m standing on the end of the world” the world is Dan’s emotions he’s at the end, isolated, guilt and regret the only place he can go is backwards to when he was happy. Dan isolates himself because he’s ashamed of what he has done. Dan is also in the wheelchair but he hates it because people that he wants to stay away from must push him around. Although Dan is trying to be isolated the wheelchair is the one thing that keeps him near human contact. Eventually Dan lets people in when he gets someone to share his room with, he says he is happier with them than without like ‘the darkness has left’ the darkness is the isolation