Sample question
Question
With reference to the ways that Doyle presents Paddy’s life, show how far you agree that he is a happy child?
You could make a variety of the following points if you were writing an essay in response to this question.
This list is neither prescriptiveSomething that describes exactly what needs to happen, by rule or instruction. nor exhaustiveSomething with a clear end or finite. - you may not have time to mention all these points in an hour and there are many more points that you could make. Just make sure you know the novel well enough to come up with a selection of good points quickly, no matter what question you are asked.
- Doyle uses the first person narrative voice to allow the speaker to reveal his true feelings. Paddy’s voice - how he speaks and what he says - suggest he is a happy child in a variety of ways.
- Doyle’s writing style creates a sense of immediacy and urgency. For example, he uses a lot of commas instead of full stops. This quickens the pace and feels like Paddy is talking to us now with the excitement and enthusiasm of a young boy. It allows the reader to enter the world of a ten-year-old boy who sees things with childish wonder and awe. Doyle ignores normal punctuation - such as speech marks - which would slow the pace down. He uses fragments and short sentences to convey the speed and chaos of young boys in their adventures. All of this means the tone of the novel is often one of exhilaration, showing Paddy full of happiness.
- Paddy’s family are warm and loving. Even when his parents’ marriage breaks down his mother remains the fabric that holds his world together. Alongside her affection and warmth is a firm hand as she ensures he develops responsibility and a conscience. Doyle uses contrast to show that Paddy’s parents encourage him educationally, provide him with nutritious meals and ensure he is clean and well clothed. There are many references to the problems in Liam and Aidan’s family, with Mr O’Connell letting his sons stay off school as a treat and giving them takeaways every night. In contrast we see Paddy’s mother providing a home cooked meal every evening - even when her marriage is falling apart - and both parents ensuring that Paddy reads and does his homework. So it could be argued that Paddy has a relatively happy home life which will hopefully improve again once his father has left and the conflict stops.
- The games Paddy plays convey a sense of freedom in his childhood that we may not have nowadays. Paddy and his friends engage in imaginative and creative play outdoors. The games are real to the boys, complete with rules and routines, "pushing was allowed ... not pulling or tripping". The boys create their own order without the presence of adults.
- The garden hedge jumping game is referred to as the “Grand National". It is brought to life using stream of consciousness, with the same energy as that famous horse race. In breathless complex sentences Paddy establishes the course and the various obstacles, "All the walls of the front gardens were the same height”. What might seem trivial detailing to us is of key importance to Paddy. He is free of the worries of school and home life, immersed in the moment, "We crept forward" like horses "under starter’s orders".
- Doyle evokes the excitement and freedom of childhood. Paddy enthuses, "It was mad; it was brilliant". The use of "it" reminds us of the way children speak. The repetition of the word “brilliant” throughout shows how positively Paddy sees things.
- The boys form a community who understand each other, there was "no handicapping … no one would have wanted it". There is a sense of the boys as a united force in the pronounA word which stands in place of a noun, eg he, us, them. used, "we … the group". They fend off an adulthood that will see them go their separate ways. The buzz of being caught by adults only adds to the childhood excitement. What is annoying and painful for grownups - like thieving from the local shops - is just fun playtime for the boys.
- While an adult reader can see pain and misfortune in the adult world that Doyle presents, Paddy and his friends are generally unaware of this and instead it just becomes part of their fun. The partially sighted Mrs Byrne becomes "Specky Three Eyes", a cartoon character entertaining the boys. Mr McLoughlin has to endure the boys as they charge across his garden, but his concern is dismissed as a boyish sniggering joke, “he nearly had a heart attack".
You should always try to provide a counterargumentAn opposing viewpoint put forward to contrast with an idea or theory developed in your main argument. in any essay as this shows you know the novel well enough to see other arguments and interpretations.
If you want to get high marks it is essential that you show understanding of different points of view.
Remember that characters and situations are rarely simple and - like most real life people and events - there are often two sides to most opinions.
In this case, some points of counterargument could be as follows.
- Despite the childish excitement and joy of playing with friends and getting into mischievous scrapes, the increasing tension between Paddy’s parents introduces fear and unhappiness into his life. Their conflict affects him badly. He responds physically and emotionally - he can’t sleep and rocks back and forth. There is a deep sadness in Paddy’s sense of helplessness over his parents’ separation, "I couldn’t stop it from starting”. He is gradually becoming aware that his childhood is over and he is entering early adulthood.
- The parallels between the Clarke family and the O’Connell family become clearer as the novel progresses. This may foreshadow that Paddy’s family life will deteriorate like Liam and Aidan’s did after their mother’s death. The O’Connell boys have crisp sandwiches for lunch, which seems to Paddy very exciting compared to the cheese and ham ones his mother packs for him. However, later on when Paddy’s parents are experiencing difficulties of their own Paddy himself is given money for crisp sandwiches. On the first page of the novel we find out about Mr Hennessey’s sensitive response to Liam when he soils his trousers. Later on the teacher shows the same sensitivity to Paddy when he falls asleep due to exhaustion after staying up all night because of his parents’ fighting.
- There is a lot of violence and cruelty in Paddy’s life in general. Many children - including him - get injured during the novel. There is domestic violence within his family and - especially near the end of the novel - there are many fights between the boys themselves.
