Comparative Essay
COMPARATIVE ESSAY
Compare how effectively the authors of your chosen texts explore parent/child relationships.
Parent/Child relationships are widely portrayed in the two novels, Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones and Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon. The authors both explore and portray the relationships between the main characters and a parental role differently in relation to the other despite them both being from opposite sides of the world, as well as the story being set in different time periods. In Mister Pip, its Matilda a young black girl from the island of Papua New Guinea with her mother Dolores and in The Curious Incident.. its Christopher, a young boy with Aspergers Syndrome from Swindon along with father Ed Boone.
The children on the island in Mister Pip are made to look inferior to the adults earlier on in the novel. Despite being a norm or value, the children in Mister Pip are made to abide all the rules that are set by the adults which often makes them feel less important than the adults. This is established early in the first few pages of the novel "We weren't worthy of that. It was as if we didn't exist" (page 3). Although its the norm in most cultures and societies that the children are raised to respect the elder peers, follow the rules set by them and inherit their general knowlegde, its seems that both the children and their parents are intellectually equal despite the difference in age and observation. "When our ancestors saw the first whit guy they thought they were looking at ghosts.." (Page 5) This shows the intellectual relationship between the children and their parents who mainly base their knowledge of what they've observed forcing the children to believe it word for word. However, Christopher in the Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night Time, does not consider the adults superior in the novel when he is being shouted at by Mrs Shears for being on her lawn and holding the corpse of the dog Wellington
Compare how effectively the authors of your chosen texts explore parent/child relationships.
Parent/Child relationships are widely portrayed in the two novels, Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones and Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon. The authors both explore and portray the relationships between the main characters and a parental role differently in relation to the other despite them both being from opposite sides of the world, as well as the story being set in different time periods. In Mister Pip, its Matilda a young black girl from the island of Papua New Guinea with her mother Dolores and in The Curious Incident.. its Christopher, a young boy with Aspergers Syndrome from Swindon along with father Ed Boone.
The children on the island in Mister Pip are made to look inferior to the adults earlier on in the novel. Despite being a norm or value, the children in Mister Pip are made to abide all the rules that are set by the adults which often makes them feel less important than the adults. This is established early in the first few pages of the novel "We weren't worthy of that. It was as if we didn't exist" (page 3). Although its the norm in most cultures and societies that the children are raised to respect the elder peers, follow the rules set by them and inherit their general knowlegde, its seems that both the children and their parents are intellectually equal despite the difference in age and observation. "When our ancestors saw the first whit guy they thought they were looking at ghosts.." (Page 5) This shows the intellectual relationship between the children and their parents who mainly base their knowledge of what they've observed forcing the children to believe it word for word. However, Christopher in the Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night Time, does not consider the adults superior in the novel when he is being shouted at by Mrs Shears for being on her lawn and holding the corpse of the dog Wellington