Is the narrator reliable?

Even though we haven't got enough information yet to answer this question fully, we've noticed a few clues and hints in chapter 2 that point towards a conclusion. The whole story is told from Stephen's point of view, so we can agree from the very beginning that it's told in first person. This alone already tells us a little bit about the narrator's reliability. No story narrated in the first person can be completely objective, and so  there will always be something that is based on the narrator's point of view. And this of course happens with Stephen: he is constantly giving his opinion on what's going on in the story, often comparing his perspective as a kid and his perspective as a grown up.

There are many ways in which the story makes us doubt about the narrator's reliability. One of them are the sweeping generalisations Stephen makes when  he introduces Keith Hayward in chapter 2. One of the generalisations we've found so far is that he describes Keith as being absolutely perfect, whereas he considers himself  the worst of the worst when compared to his friend.  Even though it may seem Keith is in a much better economic situation than Stephen, it is obvious that he can't be superior to Stephen in all aspects. However, Stephen makes it look as if he were superior to him from all points of view. He talks about Keith's life as if everything is perfect. For example, Stephen refers to the colours of Keith´s school as an epitome of excellence:  "Yellow and black are the colors of the right local preparatory school..." but he talks about the colours of his own school as if they were some sort of disgrace compared to Keith's: "Green and black are the colors of the wrong school..." To us, he is emphasizing the words 'right' and 'wrong' as he uses them again to make the following  controversial deductions and sweeping generalizations: “Cycling is plainly the right way to go to school; the bus which Stephen catches each day at the cracked concrete bus stop on the main road is plainly the wrong way. Green is the right colour for a bicycle as it's the wrong one for a belt or a bus” "...everything about him was yellow and black; everything about me was plainly green and black." This shows he thinks everything (not just social class) in Keith's life is great and everything in his life is miserable. Besides, not matter what Keith does, it is always correct but whatever Stephen does is always incorrect. This is evidently  his point of view. This is just what he thinks, and we doubt if these ideas are not just an indicator of an inferiority complex.

He also uses extremely hyperbolic descriptions to talk about the Haywards. As these descriptions are highly exaggerated, we can't say that they are 100% reliable. From Stephen´s perspective, “the Haywards were impeccable”. Everything related to them is perfect. The text is full of positive adjectives describing how neat and special their home and all their possessions are.  Keith´s playroom is an example of a tidiness and a carefulness which is rarely found in children his age: "All of Keith's toys are his own, neatly ranged in drawers and cupboards, often in the same boxes they came in." Even their chicken coop is described in that way: “Even the chickens at the bottom of their garden lived irreproachably elegant lives”.All his descriptions of the Haywards  are clearly hyperbolic, but it is only because that is the way he sees them.. And, once more, this subjectivity takes away from the credibility of the narrator.

Finally, one of the reasons we doubt about whether the narrator is reliable or not, is Stephen's sense of inferiority. He is so certain of his unworthiness that he cannot explain the fact that the Haywards allowed him to play with their only son: “ What puzzles me now as I look back on it is that Keith´s parents had ever allowed their son to build underground tunnels and overhead cable cars to Stephen´s house, (...) to invite him to play (…)“” I was acutely aware, even then, of my incomprehensible good fortune in being Keith´s friend.” Moreover, the narrator has always seemed to feel inferior to others he has  had a close relation with, no matter who they are. When he talks about Keith he makes it clear that, for some reason, he has always seemed to be the dominated individual in a relationship: "I see now that he was only the first in a whole series of dominant figures in my life whose disciple I became." This is important because the fact that he feels inferior to others means that he is used to admiring and looking up to everyone else, thus he is not giving an objective point of view. As he's always worshiping the person he is relating with, his opinions stem from this admiration.

In conclusion, these clues and hints given so far in the story make us doubt about the reliability of the narrator. Up to this point, we have agreed on saying that the narrator (Stephen) is unreliable due to all these reasons: his constant sweeping generalisations, his hyperbolic descriptions when talking about Keith and his family and his own sense of inferiority.

References to World War Two in chapter 2

We learn that the events from the narrator's childhood described in chapter 2 took place in the times of  World War II because there are many references to it.

First of all, there are many references to the feared enemies: the Germans, and to the Blitz, i.e. the German bombardment of the United Kingdom. Mr Haywards has taken out the wheels of his car “to prevent its being commandeered, as Keith explained, by invading Germans.” (Picador, page 23), and he is planning to use his revolver “to give any invading German a nasty surprise.”(page 23)  Once the two boys saw “a crashed German plane with the pilot sitting dead in the cockpit” (page 21), and there is “an air-raid shelter” in Keith´s garden. Clearly these last quotations refer to German attacks on England, and to one of the ways in which people took refuge from them. (In class, we also mentioned how, in London, people used the railway stations as shelters)

 

There are also some references to the way in which the war affected citizens´ every day lives: many of the men in the street are “away in the Services”, Mr Hayward can´t use his car because of  the shortage of petrol brought about by the war, and  Stephen mentions that leisure has been suspended for the “Duration”. Stephen capitalises this word to show how in his childhood there was so much talk about the duration of the war, that he thought it was a fixed phrase.

There is a reference to the “Jews” as well, who live in Trewinnick, the “mysterious house where the blackout are always drawn.” We wonder if the poor Jewish people living there are so terrified by the Holocaust that they don't dare open their windows but Keith and Stephen  took them for a sinister organization, and they called them the “Juice”.

Last but not least, the war is even present in the metaphoric language used to describe Stephen and Keith´s relationship: they are a “two-man army”. Keith is an “officer corps”, and Stephen is the “other ranks”.

In conclusion, the historical context pervades the descriptions of the characters and the houses in the Close in chapter 2, and makes us feel that War World 2 is in the air.

How is Stephen Wheatley introduced? (Essay writing)

Tips to write a good text-based essay

A text-based question  is different from other kinds of questions in the exam, because it always refers to just one passage of the novel, which should be analysed in detail. In other questions, you may be asked about an aspect of the whole book, and you may need to refer to different passages, but in a text-based question you need to focus just on the given extract.

1)  Read the question carefully and make sure you understand all aspects of it. (Remember you can´t answer just one part of it and leave the rest aside)

Example:Text-based question

 In this question,  you have to 1) describe
                                                2) explore

To describe, you may say that grey is the colour that seems to characterise Stephen. But you also need to "explore" this information, so that means that, for example, you will have to consider the connotations of this colour.

Besides the word "how" in this question suggests that you will need to say something about the way in which language is used in this description.

2) Read the passage and start thinking of the question. Mark everything that may help you answer it.

3) Start planning what you´ll say and how you will organise your ideas.

4) Try to think of a good thesis statement that may help you organise your thoughts. The thesis statement is the sentence that summarises the main point of your essay.  For this passage, we thought of three possible thesis statements:

a) When the old narrator introduces the young Stephen, he tries to detach himself from his childhood version as much as possible, because he doesn't seem to recognize himself in the boy
b) The narrator uses sensory images to introduce the young Stephen to make him come alive from the recesses of his memory.
c) The narrator introduces the young Stephen in relation to his surroundings (home and neighbours) to show how different he is from the other children in the Close.

You have to include the thesis statement in the introduction, and let it govern your whole essay. Everything you say needs to develop and prove your thesis statement.

Here you can read two essays that use the first thesis statement (a):
Martina´s essay
Mia´s essay
(These essays were written by two Senior IV students, who are re-reading the book this year.)

Our Parents' preadolescence

Their meeting place

The majority of our parents met their friends from their neighborhood in the street. Others went to a specific square, field or club.

What they used to do together

Almost all our dads played football and chatted when they were together. Sabrina’s and Franco’s dads went cycling all along the neighborhood.

On the other hand, our mothers would read magazines and gossip the whole day! Victoria’s mom would often have a picnic with her friends.

The Neighbourhood

All our parents agreed or confessed their sense of belonging to their neighbourhood was very, very powerful. Franco’s dad told him they even organized football matches between different districts.

Gossiping was an everyday business. Children paid attention to their neighbours´comings and goings, and even invented stories about them. Once, near  Sofia’s mom´s childhood house,  a little girl drowned in a cesspool. Children were so shocked that they were afraid of getting near the place in case her ghost haunted it.

How they kept in touch

Although our parents didn’t have any type of technology to message each other, they could find a way to arrange their meetings. Children would walk house by house in order to collect friends. Alternatively, Franco’s father arranged with his friends to meet with everyone in a corner so they would know where and when to meet.

In spite of the lack of technology (such as  cell phones) they always had a way to get together.

An important -and awesome- fact about our parents’ neighborhood friends is that they are still in touch with each other!

Information about sex and puberty

They didn’t have any information about these topics, and they mostly learned about them from friends. We've collected some anecdotes that illustrate their ignorance on the subject: Victoria’s mom thought that  she could get pregnant by kissing a boy. Similarly, a friend of Sabrina’s mother´s was once very scared because someone had touched her bottom and she was afraid she would get pregnant. One of the girls in our class told us that when her grandmother had her first period, she was very worried because she thought she had hurt herself. Obviously, they didn’t have any sexual education and because of this they were scared about these things or built up false hypotheses. In conclusion, they had very little information about sex and puberty.

My preadolescence (30 years ago)

Our meeting place

Apart from the friends I had at school, I had many friends in the neighbourhood, whom I used to meet outdoors, in the street.  Every afternoon, we would go out and gather outside our houses.

What we used to do when we were together

We loved playing dodgeball, hide-and-seek or tag. We sometimes rode our bikes or we went for walks.

There were no cell phones or internet in those days so we had to resort to our imagination for entertainment. And we certainly did. We created our own adventures. For example, once, after reading a book where some girls entered an uninhabited house and set a home for an abandoned baby there, we felt like doing the same (without the “baby” part, of course, because it wasn't that easy to find an abandoned baby around) So we spent more than two months shaping an old key with a file in the hope of being able to open the door of a for- sale house round the corner.

The neighbourhood.

The neighbourhood was very important for us. We knew everybody's name and we used to talk with the neighbours a lot. We loved gossiping and making up stories about the neighbours, especially about those whom we considered “mysterious”. Opposite my house, there used to live an old woman. Unluckily, she was getting a bit deaf. We thought she was “strange” because she used to shout when she spoke, and her appearance was quite dishevelled. Her house was very untidy, too. Every day, at half past six, she started preparing what must have been her soup, in a big casserole. We watched her through her window, and assumed that she was making a potion or casting a spell in her cauldron... We had no doubts the poor lady was a witch!

How we got in touch

We had no cell phones or social media, but we had the same desire you have today to keep in touch, so we devised two ingenious means of communication. The first one was a perforated brick we used as a letterbox, which we had placed at the top of the party wall that divided my house and one of my best friends´. The danger of this system was that we had to climb the wall every time we wanted to leave or get a message. The second one was a “flying potato”. We attached a written message to a potato and we threw it over the wall into our neighbour's garden. The disadvantage was that if you didn´t have good aim, your message would never reach its destination, and you would have to wait till your next opportunity to abduct another potato from the kitchen.

Information about sexuality, and the changes brought about by puberty

My friends and I knew the basics about the changes brought about by puberty, thanks to some talks given at school by Johnson and Johnson,  but we knew really very little about sexuality.

When I read Spies for the first time, some of Stephen and Keith´s activities reminded me of my childhood games and adventures. It is good to bear this context in mind to understand the character´s innocence and the work of their imagination.

Our preadolescence nowadays.

Our meeting place

We meet  either at a friend’s house or at Starbucks or at an ice-cream shop.

What we do when we are together

The boys mostly play football, play  video games such as “FIFA” or talk. Sometimes they share workshops as well.

As regards the girls, we really enjoy gossiping. We also like playing a video game called "Just Dance" and we sometimes go on holidays together so we can spend more time with each other.

How we get in touch

We use the social media (for example Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook) If we have to arrange something, we usually  use WhatsApp. In fact,  it is easier and faster than writing a mail. For example, Miguel has Brazilian friends and he is still in contact with them by using these apps.

Information about sexuality, and the changes brought about by puberty

Some of us spoke about these topics with our parents, and all of us had special lessons devoted to these topics at school.

Stephen´s and Keith´s houses in chapter 2

Click here to see a chart comparing Stephen´s and Keith´s houses.

Childhood today and before the digital era

Before we go on reading, I want you to do a bit of informal research about preadolescent children today and some generations ago. These are the guidelines for your research:

Preadolescent children today. (Your generation)

Discuss:

1. Where preadolescent children meet with their friends
2. What they do when they are together
3. How they keep in touch
4. What information they have about questions related to sexuality or about the changes brought about by puberty.

Preadolescence before the digital era.

Interview somebody from the generation of your parents or grandparents about their preadolescence, and register their comments and anecdotes.

Find out:

1. Where they used to meet with their friends
2. What they used to do when they were together.
3. If they used any means of communication when they were not together.
4. If the neighbourhood was important to them (e.g: did they talk with neighbours, watch them, make up stories about them,etc?)
5. What information they had about puberty or sexuality, and what the source of this information was.(family, friends, school,etc)

Sensory images and memory

At the beginning of the book, we can find that the narrator uses many sense-related images to describe his memories. One of them , for example, is when Stephen tries to describe a peculiar smell whose origin he could not determine ("It's something quite harsh and coarse. It reeks."). Other examples would be when he makes an effort to recreate the texture of the scaly belt he wore as a child ("In the tip of my fingers, though, even now, I can feel the delicious silvery serrated texture of the snake's scaliness.") or the failed garter of his sock (“I can feel it in my fingertips, as clearly as the scaliness of the snake, the hopeless bagginess of the failed garter beneath the turned-down top), or when the sound of a train makes the past rematerialise, and turns the present Close into his childhood street.

The use of these sensory images was proved to be a good method to remember things in a TV show called "Brain Games". In an episode of this show, the host asked a group of people to memorize a certain amount of items in a room. In their first try they could only remember around 3 or 4 items out of 10, but in their second try, the host told them to think of a sensory aspect of each item to see if  their score improved. To their surprise, it worked. This time they could recall around 6 or 7 of the 10 items.

The studies and experiments made in "Brain Games" show why Stephen focuses on sensory elements to retrieve his childhood memories.  As shown in this TV show, using the senses helps us remember.

"Everything is as it was (...) and everything has changed" (Chapter 2)

The chapter opens with a paradox: "Everything is at it was, I discover when I reach my destination, and everything has changed".  This paradox invites us to wonder what has remained the same and what is different: the appearance of the place, the narrator´s feelings, the people, the atmosphere? In the following paragraphs, the narrator gives us many clues as to how to understand this initial paradox.

On the one hand, the similarities the old narrator notices between the Close of his childhood and the street he has in front of him are the ordinariness of the place and the number of houses. The same 14 houses stand in exactly the same place where they stood 60 years before and the street still looks as ordinary and unremarkable as it used to.

On the other hand, there have been many changes. The houses don´t look the same. Their appearance has changed and they have less vegetation around them. The trees have grown: “The stringy prunus saplings” that where along the verges of the avenue “are now wise and dignified trees”. The main road has now less traffic and the shop names have changed. Even the sky has changed from one full of war, falling flares and searchlights at night to one that was “mild and bland”.

In conclusion, we can say that even though the town has physically changed, the narrator finds it still familiar. In spite of the changes, he is still able to recognise the houses and the dull atmosphere that pervades the place.

How is the reader engaged in the first chapter?

I would like to share an essay written by Ramiro Barreto,  a senior IV student,  on this subject:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W24K8mWmoNe77023QAhcnB05nLyKotbgAbnJffzVSxo/edit?usp=sharing

Read it and pay attention to how ideas are organised and developed. Notice how the first paragraph acts as an introduction to the topic and the last one presents the conclusion.

Memories in chapter 1

The story is written in the first person and it presents the memories of the narrator, who is an elderly man. It is June. It is summer. A powerful perfume brings back the smells of the plants and gardens of the narrator's childhood into his mind, and activates his memory.

The narrator remembers his childhood in a suburb of London.  He remembers his friend Keith and Keith's mother with her brown eyes, laughing and a moment later, crying
Other apparently disconnected memories flash into his mind.: "A shower of sparks...A feeling of shame...someone unseen coughing, trying not to be heard...a jug covered by a lace weighted with four blue beads... " He also mentions six words, which “changed everything” but he doesn't reveal them yet.

All these glimpses into the narrator's childhood arouse our interest and attention as readers. We feel curious. We want to know what were the six words that his friend Keith said and how all these fragmentary memories are related, so we want to turn the page to find out what happens when he visits his childhood neighborhood.