Duck Feet: Plot

Duck Feet is a contemporary novel written by Ely Percy. It was published in 2021.

The novel has won the Scottish Book of the Year and Scottish Fiction Book of the Year at the Saltire Awards.

The story follows Kirsty Campbell throughout her time at secondary school (the fictional Renfrew Grammar). The events of the novel are set in the mid-2000s.

Though Duck Feet spans the entirety of Kirsty’s complex secondary school experience and the months directly after leaving high school, the final Scottish Set Text exam paper at National 5 focuses only on the first section of the novel. Therefore, you are only required to study 'Part Wan' of the novel. This section covers Kirsty’s first year at school.

Looking for some quick revision? Try an interactive quiz for National 5 English.

Part Wan contains 30 chapters. A lot happens to a young person over the course of a school year. In summary, during these chapters, Kirsty starts secondary school, attends a range of different subjects, and has social experiences outside the school day.

The chapters are episodic, so each one reads like a short story or vignette, but when read in order they progress the action of the novel as a whole.

Friendships

Part Wan of Duck Feet mainly focuses on the relationships between Kirsty and her classmates. The author explores the complexity of friendships and how difficult it can be to navigate personal relationships.

• Kirsty's relationship with her best friend from primary, Charlene, starts to fracture as Charlene is increasingly drawn towards teenage drama, gossip, and troublemaking.
• She remains loyal to Charlene – when her friend’s mental health decays and she suffers disordered eating (to the point of hospitalisation), Kirsty is there to support her.
• Kirsty enjoys new friendships with a diverse group of pupils in her classes, particularly with Harpreet, Chris Rice, and Yvonne.

Personal growth and development

In Part Wan, Kirsty and her classmates are becoming teenagers. Growing up is a key theme and part of what makes this novel a Bildungsroman.

• Kirsty grows in independence: going shopping to Glasgow, attending gigs, and trying vegetarianism.
• She learns new skills, such as swimming and social dancing, as well as developing subject-specific knowledge (ie. in Office and Information Studies, French, PE, and Home Economics).
• She experiences teenage rites of passage (such as attending school discos, having her first kiss, falling out with friends, getting a part-time job) and enters puberty.

Community and social issues

Through Kirsty's point of view, the author explores various issues that affect the local community and wider society. By the end of Part Wan, Kirsty better understands aspects of:

• her community such as unemployment, poverty, hard-work, sectarian division, and inter-family conflict
• personal and social issues such as faith, mental health, and sexuality

Duck Feet is what is known as a Bildungsroman, a story that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist as they grow up.

Some features of Bildungsroman evident in Duck Feet are:

• first person protagonist narrative
• theme of growing up
• seeing the protagonist evolve in maturity and identity.

The book is structured chronologically:

• in three parts (First Year, Fourth Year and Sixth Year)
• in Part Wan, chapters 1-30 take us through Kirsty's first year at Renfrew Grammar, until the summer holidays.

This straightforward narrative helps the reader follow her progress, and that of the other characters. We see her grow and mature as the story continues.

Other famous Bildungsromane include:

• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• The Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Revise plot in Duck Feet with interactive quizzes for National 5 English.

Information and support

If you, or someone you know, have been affected by issues for young people, the following page contains a list of organisations and information that may be able to help: Information and Support: Bitesize