Henry Smart

1748 Words4 Pages

In Roddy Doyle’s series Oh, Play That Thing and The Dead Republic the world is shown to the readers through the eyes of a wise fool, Henry Smart. The series includes a wide variety of magical realism, and how Henry continues to fight social norms to get what he wants. The idea of society vs. man and individualism takes a toll on Henry’s pride forcing to jump from city to city making him feel special. With the new era of feminism, Henry’s life becomes more focused around those he loves, and how they guided him. And if it was not for them there would never have been a trilogy for Henry Smart.
The elements of magical realism in a historical series, at first sight seem quite suitable. It is generally agreed that the picaresque, with its humorous ideas on the social outcasts trying to endure an aggressive environment, is a practical move against the romanticize tendency of the plot. Magic realism, with its limited interruption of mimetic rules, lends itself to a number of uses, postcolonial being one of them. It introduces elements of grotesque moments that allow the readers to sense the satirical potentials and it brings in metaphorical aspects to the plate. The pieces of magical realism seem to play with the readers mind. The convention of picaresque combined with magical realism builds a wider grotesque vision for the reader. It is not only the space but also the characters, the main protagonist among them are shaped according to the defamilliarising rules of this magical picaresque world. The characters in Henry’s world are not so much fully-developed characters, but comically sinister. Like Louis Armstrong or Sister Flow with their mysterious qualities, they are mainly social outcast who are gifted with fantastic qualities that d...

... middle of paper ...

...en in his life, that he owes a lot to them. For example, his wife, Nuala O’Shea, and all the other women in the series (Dora, sister flow, or Saoirse) have saved him more than he saved himself. And that the role of the women extremely changed, with the new feministic ideas and developments they have shown this enormous surge of influence throughout the book that literally keep Henry on his feet.
In conclusion, Roddy Doyle puts a good amount of magical realism to play around with the readers mind and to take off a bit of the historical dullness with the grotesque and satirical moments. Henry’s portrayal as a wise-fool saved him in countless of situations. He was surrounded by the idea of individuality, which made him want to assert himself to a whole new level to show his value. And if it was not for the women around him he would have been the next star called Henry.

Open Document