I seriously question myself.
Feb. 9th, 2004 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tammaiya![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
schiarire extended the offer to psycho-analysis her latest story- here- and so I did. Um. But it sort of turned into an essay. Which I am putting up mainly so that Ji can go "Er... Yes! I did that on purpose!" Which just proves what wonderful bullshit English is, really.This untitled story about a boy and his friend is, on the surface, a tale about coming of age. There are some vital differences, though, and it is these differences that I will focus on in this paper. The most important things to note in this work are the style in which it is written, the personality of the boy, and the interaction between the three characters. The style is what gives this piece this feel, and the characters and their relationships give a deep insight into the human condition. These three factors are why this story has such a strong impact upon the reader.
The story is written in a very detached and impersonal fashion- it is written in third person, in the past tense, and none of the characters have a name. It is important to take note of these stylistic features; the impersonality of the third person and the anonymity of the characters allow the reader to take a step back and observe events from a detached and unclouded point of view, while the tense of the piece evokes a sense of the inevitability of the boy’s life in the reader. There is a distinct feeling of the boy’s personality in this writing style, and it is exactly this detachment that lets us begin to understand what kind of character he is.
The boy is quite clearly a genius. While his age is never mentioned, there are two possibilities. One is that he is not particularly old- he is referred to at all times as a boy, and his friend has just got his first girlfriend. Both the boy and the friend display childlike personality traits, even though the boy also shows an adult maturity in some ways. It would be reasonable to assume that the boy is approximately twelve years of age. Alternatively, the boy is an older teenager by the end of the story, but still thinks of himself as a boy due to some form of innate fear of change. However old he is, though, the boy’s intelligence far surpasses that of a bright adult. He is a child prodigy. Leading on from this, however, this vastly intellectual boy is shown to have very few social skills, and displays many of the traits of Autism, a fact evident from the opening line:
“Once upon a time there was a boy who had, perhaps, a little too much brain and a little too little heart.”
After this line, the first indication of Autism we see is in the relationship between the boy and his friend. As the story progresses, it is easy to tell that the boy finds it hard to relate to other people. Despite this, he is actually very close to this other boy, because it is really the only emotional attachment he has, and the story itself supports this in the line “The boy thought about friends, sometimes, and he concluded that his own was a good friend to have.” Nevertheless, as a result of the boy’s lack of social skills, he treats his friend rather badly by most standards and does not even understand himself how much he relies on his friend in an emotional sense. As the next line goes on to say, running on directly from the previous quote, “[his own friend being a good friend to have] was partly because his friend never objected to being used as a sort of mobile bookcase when the boy couldn’t carry everything he wanted to hold onto in his own spindly arms.” Also, the boy puts a lot of store by the similarities; he appears takes comfort in the similarities between he and his friend, which is most likely due to both his own insecurities about the unknown and his inflated ego. (In other words, being like him gains his respect, to some degree.)
The boy looks down slightly on his friend for not being on the same intellectual level as he is, but he also needs him. This is why he's so jealous when the friend finds his first girlfriend. The boy thinks of the girl in wholly uncomplimentary terms; he probably hates her in a way, but doesn't really know how to express his feelings to his friend on the matter. He's very jealous, not necessarily because he wants his friend in that way- and as we can tell from his attitude, certainly not because he wants the girl- but because he doesn't want her to take his friend away from him. The daisy incident, when the friend bought daisies for the girl, is a manifestation of this resentment- hating daisies was one of the things that they shared, and as has already been established he places great emphasis on such similarities. That his friend would go so far as to buy daisies for this girl, daisies that the boy and the friend are supposed to hate together, is a symbol of abandonment. Furthermore, the fact that he even bothered calculating the 1 per cent chance the girl would be run over by a car in the line,
“[…] forty-five percent that she would [come to talk to him], fifty-four that she wouldn’t, and one that she would be hit by a car before she worked up the nerve.”
is another underlying hint of his resentment. If he were truly calculating every possible outcome, it would seem more likely that she would break up with his friend before she “worked up the nerve” than that she would be run over by a car. This subliminal antipathy manifests in this way because the boy is incapable of identifying it and expressing it openly, so instead he expresses through his uncomplimentary thoughts towards her, about her appearance and her possible death in a car accident.
Beyond this, the boy takes refuge in his intelligence. Every time something he is faced with a situation he cannot deal with, he becomes uninterested and starts working on complex theorems. For example, when the girl talks to him, “The girl hesitated her way around the point she was trying to make without much real skill, which bored the boy, so he squared prime numbers to pass the time.” He is autistic, as previously mentioned; this has been hinted at right from the start, when the story talks about the similarities and differences. The paragraph that illustrates the differences between the two characters is a very important passage, and highlights these autistic traits as opposed to the relative normality of the friend- the story tells us that “the boy could find thirteen constellations on the second night of June if there were no clouds out by the time he was ten years old; his friend could only recognize seven.” The fact that the boy can see more constellations than his friend illustrates his precociousness. Similarly, the phrase “The boy liked answers; his friend liked questions,” gives us the same impression. Presumably, the boy likes answers because he likes everything to have a logical outcome, whereas the friend prefers to questions because they allow for individualism and creativity. However, the sentence “The boy was intrigued by the odd sludge caterpillars formed when they were forgotten and left to perish in a glass jar. His friend thought it was disgusting, which meant that he wanted to cry a little bit,” indicates that the boy has a lack of compassion and understanding for other creatures. This intelligence and detachment are both which signs hint towards autism.
The reference to the old theory that counting sheep is a way of countering insomnia is very interesting, as with all the differences mentioned. The boy takes refuge, once again, in known formulas and structures; he feels safer when he understands the rules. Another way of putting it would be to say that he is much more logic oriented than creativity centred, stronger in the left lobe of the brain than in the right- he would, for example, be a brilliant Maths student, but perhaps not so wonderful at English. The boy doesn't appear to like change, either. While his friend says that "time changes", and outwardly he agrees, the text says "most of the time" which seems to indicate that subconsciously, the thought of change is one that terrifies the boy, despite his brilliance.
To compare between the boy, the friend and the girl on a basic level, the boy may be vastly superior in terms of intellect, but it is already possible to tell that he is going to have a much harder life than the other two. He gets bored too easily as a result of being too smart; whatever job he gets in life will fail to occupy his mind fully. On top of this, he is incapable of relating to others or to the world around him, which means his relationships with other people are always going to be distant, resulting in him being isolated and lonely. If he continues to be the way he is, he will never be happy.
However, the last line is a hopeful one; the fact that he sees stars in the night sky means that he is starting to overcome his resentment towards the girl, even to reach out, and this gives the reader hope that the boy will not only make another friend in the form of the girl, but perhaps treat the existing friend in a more appreciative manner. These events may not seem like much in and of themselves, but they are quite clearly the first step towards the boy reaching a greater understanding of emotions and of his surrounding environment.
I think perhaps Ji is right, and I DO have too much free time.
In other news, I got my guesstimate, and my maths homework is to dream about white picket fences.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 09:08 am (UTC)And you hit the subconscious nail bang on the head (I know where most of it came from now even) except for maybe his age; I'm not sure how old he was either but I called him 'the boy' for these reasons:
1-In his head he didn't change until maybe the very end.
2-It would have been weird to call him something else after a certain point.
3-This is the part where I assume that what's in my head is in your head and can't think of anything else. I am teh Lazy.
Also I cannot get over the fact that your essay thing is longer than the actual Weird Het Thing itself. Cannot.
And lastly I so owe you. Because now I'm a star! (And it burns. Mommy!)
no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 09:34 am (UTC)Also: OF COURSE he doesn't change in his head! SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT! *facepalm* I could of course alter the essay... though that would sort of be cheating, getting help from the author. *muses*
And I too am amused by the length, mwahahah.
As for the writing-something: HOORAY! HAVE EARNED FIC! I'm so going to call you up on that next time I have a desperate yearning for some obscure pairing or fandom.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 09:36 am (UTC)Hee. Because you didn't get any other help...;D
Obscure is good times. Provided I actually know the fandom.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 09:39 am (UTC)True, true. For example, if I have sudden historical slash craving. *g*
no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 09:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 09:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 09:19 am (UTC)2) Okay guestimate or oh-god-kill-me-now guestimate designed to make you panic and sell your soul to the school?
3) I want your maths teacher. Who are they?
no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 09:32 am (UTC)2) Mm, okay... 87-97.
3) Mr Joyce! *smirk*
Re:
Date: 2004-02-09 09:54 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-09 10:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-11 05:06 am (UTC)Never do this to my Knights, will you? I shall fear the results...*kowtows*
no subject
Date: 2004-02-11 05:08 am (UTC)And I KNOW I'm insane. Why are you afraid of the results? *psycho grin*
Re:
Date: 2004-02-11 06:33 am (UTC)Because the characters that I don't mean to be mentally ill shall turn out that way.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-11 08:18 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-11 09:11 am (UTC)...
The characters keep on changing too. Ageing, quieting down, growing cynical, naive, troubled, manuliputed...
Merlin's skitzaphrenic though. Always will be.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-11 09:16 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-12 03:21 am (UTC)Ah, screw it.