A Life Backwards And Once In A House On Fire Analysis

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The books Stuart: A Life Backwards and Once in a House on Fire have many similarities both of the books are non-fiction and they share similar themes such as poverty and abuse which I have choose to look at closely with a focus on how these themes are narrated. The narration in the two books are completely different, Stuart: A Life Backwards has a third person narration which is done by Alexander Masters and all the memories are recalled by Stuart Shorter, while Once in a House on Fire is first person narration where Andrea Ashworth recalls her own memories of her life. However, there are differences between the two books for example the language used to tell the stories.

The time that Alexnder spent with Stuart is important as it allows …show more content…

Stuart: a life backwards and Once in a House on Fire both Stuart and Andrea share similar experiences with abuse. In Stuart: a life backwards the theme of abuse is explored in chapter 18 page 182 where Stuart spent one weekend in summer in the year 1984 at Portsmouth to see his father Rex, leading to his father coming back from the pub drunk where he then slaps his girlfriend Stuart gets angry and starts to attack his father. Stuart meets up with Sophie to cheer up the following day which leads to Stuart losing his temper and he "grabbed hold of her, and hurled her into the river" the adverb hurled suggest the anger that Stuart was feeling because instead of pushing her into the water he had grabbed her and through her into the river adding more force. While, In Once in a house on fire Andrea also ends up watching her stepfather abuse her mother. In chapter 10 page 164 her mother is ironing her pleats for her final job interview for a secretary position, Peter their stepfather comes home thinking that the girls and their mother are having fun without him, which leads to their mother standing up to him by not doing her usual routine of putting the kettle on and then taking their stepfathers shoes off, their mother then goes on to tell him that he can do what he wants with his life as long as he leaves her and her children's lives alone. Andrea's stepfather is …show more content…

However, due to the narration of the books being different both books have different effects on the reader. Andrea narrates in a disengaged way where she doesn’t want the reader to sympathise for her but to listen to the struggles she went through as she uses a childlike lexicon narration, written in a curt way showing her stoicism. One the other hand, Masters narrates in a self-deprecating and adds humour to Stuarts misfortunes. Masters narrates in third person however he does the unusual that doesn’t happen in biographies and adds his own opinions in the book making himself a character as well. Both books are narrated different and are written in a different style but the way they narrate helps to generate

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