The Go-Between Essay -- go-between Essays

The Go-Between 1. Overview This book is a memory story: a man in his sixties looks back on his boyhood of the middle class boy recalling the events that took place on a summer visit to an aristocratic family in Norfolk in the 1900’s. The author uses double narrative, the young Leo's actions told by the older Leo, and it shows us how it has affected his life Firsttly, I’ll introduce the main characters, their functions and relationships, then I’ll give you a small summary of the story, followed by the main themes and their symbolic elements, and finally the style of the book. Leo Colston has two different aspects, he’s the narrator of the book, a man of about sixty year old, and he’s a â€Å"dried up† man inside. Leo is a young boy of the middle class. He lives alone with his mother in West Hash, a little village near Salisbury. His father was a bank gardener in Salisbury is dead, Leo thinks he was a crank, he didn’t want his son to go to school but his mother always wanted him to go so as soon as he died, he went. His mother liked gossip and was very sensitive to public opinion, she needed social frame, and we can easily imagine her pleasure when her son has been invited to spend a summer to a rich friend. He has also an aunt, Charlotte, a Londoner. He and his mother were living on her money, the pension from the bank and the little; his father had been able to put by. Leo attends to the same school as upper class boys, such as Maudsley (he doesn’t remember his name probably because he has never been a special friend to him but while reading the diary he remembers his name was Marcus). Leo used to write his feelings and the happenings of each day on a diary. He believed he had magical powers and was able to cast spells. When he was at school, two boys who had annoyed him had an accident and he believes it is due to what he wrote on his journal. When he went to Brandham Hall, he was naà ¯ve and innocent. He didn’t know anything about love and sex. He naturally felt in love with a beautiful lady, as any young boy would have done. He’s curious about sex even if he doesn’t know what it is. The lack of father is especially important at that point; those explanations should be made by the father â€Å"it’s a job for your dad really†¦Ã¢â‚¬  At the end of the story he has discovered what he wanted to know but the outcome is devasting for him, he’ll be haunted al... ...She refers to her grandson, but in a sense Leo is the child of that 'happiness and beauty' of theirs which ignored all moral responsibility. Within the story itself we are led to see a duplicity in Marian which discredits her morally. Her kindness in taking Leo to Norwich for the new suit is marred by her second motive of meeting Ted. Her affection for Leo is undermined by her use of him. The birthday present of the bycyle which almost diverts him from his own belief in his moral duty to leave Brandham, and which he dreams of riding in the village street at home, is intended to make him a more efficient go-between. Ted may seem to be more concerned about Leo, but the narrator's verdict on him is that with all his decency and vitality, he is cowardly. Interpreting The Go Between has a moral tale meets with keen opposition from some readers who insist that Marian and Ted are the only healthy, natural people in the book; that Leo suffers from having lived a fantasy, and that Trimingham is living a rather pompous role as lord of the manor. The Go-Between is more than a simple moral tale. It does not force an interpretation on the reader, but invites him to think for himself.