"'Remember the guardians, before we left, how they kept reminding us we could take our collections with us. So I'd taken everything out of my box and put it into this holdall bag. My plan was I'd find a really good wooden box for it all once I got to the Cottages. But when we got there, I could see none of the veterans had collections. It was only us, it wasn't normal.'" pg. 130
I think a very prevalent theme of this book is wanting to fit in. Many of the characters go through journeys in this book trying to find their place and make friends with the "normal" people.
In the beginning, Tommy struggled to find acceptance. His temper, arrogance, and lack of artistic skill made him an outcast. He often burst out in fits of anger if he was excluded from an activity or if someone made fun of him. He just wanted to be accepted so he changed himself to be more like other people.
All of the teenagers at Hailsham tried to fit in when they became older and started having sex. They would even lie to one another to make themselves sound more experienced and similar to what they thought was the majority.
Now in this section of the book, Ruth is struggling to make herself fit-in. She is working hard to help all of her Hailsham friends appear "normal" so that no one is left behind. She and Tommy copy all of the older couples. They go out with these veterans a lot. She even copies moves from television because another couple did.
It's interesting how much people will change in order to fit it, but it's even more curious how so many people are worried about fitting in. If everyone could realize that they go through the same train of thought, would fitting in seem important at all?
No comments:
Post a Comment