The Snapper - Roddy Doyle
Where? The book plays in Ireland, you can tell by the accent the people in the book have. They talk like: “I don’t know wha’ you’re talkin’ abou’.” You also know because Sharon’s brother Jimmy Jr. wants to be DJ and he always says “This is Jimmy Rabbitte all over Ireland.” Sharon and her family live in a town called Barrytown, they tell this in the book. The story takes place in an environment of unemployment, drinking, a low degree of education and little money. On the other side there’s a great sense of togetherness in the families and the community, it’s very close, I know this because Sharon thought “Soon everybody would know.” after she told her friends she was pregnant. In Barrytown everybody knows each other. It plays most of the time at Sharon’s home, a bar where she often comes and a bar where here dad (Jimmy Sr.) often comes.. When? It plays in a recent past, because there are cars, bikes and freezers. But sometimes it is a bit old fashion, for instance everybody’s shocked when they find out Sharon’s pregnant and she isn’t going to marry the dad of her baby. I don’t think people would react like this now in The Netherlands.
Characters
The main character is Sharon. She’s 20 year old. Sharon’s a girl who’ll always hold on, and she will never give up. She’s the daughter of Veronica and Jimmy Rabbitte. She’s pregnant of mister George Burgess, a married man, father of Yvonne, one of her friends. At first she didn’t tell anybody who the father is. But then people think mister Burgess is the father and she doesn’t want them to know that, so she makes up a story about a Spanish sailor. She really is a sweet girl. She has al lot of friends with which she likes to go drinking in a pub. Her best friend is Jackie, but she isn’t very close with her either, ‘cause she didn’t tell her right away she was pregnant and she didn’t tell her who the real father of her baby is. At first she doesn’t like the idea of being pregnant, but in the end she does, she even calls her daughter after the father, Georgina. She really wants to do everything right. “She started doing sit-up exercises and touching her toes when she got home from work. … She was drinking a lot of milk. She was eating oranges. She kept reminding herself to go to a chemist’s and get vitamin pills. She was eating All-Bran four times a week.” But I don’t think she’s being very sensible, because she keeps on drinking alcohol when she’s pregnant. I do like her, because she doesn’t care at all what people think about her, she only cares about her friends and her family. “Fuck them. Fuck all of them. She didn’t care. The girls had been great.”
Sharon’s dad Jimmy Sr. takes a pretty big role in the book too. He’s the father of 6 children; Sharon, Jimmy, Leslie, Darren, Tracy and Linda, and he’s married to Veronica. He swears a lot. He says “fuck” in almost every sentence he says. He drinks a lot, in a pub with his friends. At first I didn’t really like his character, but he really wants to change in the end. He wants to be a good father. “There is more to life than drinking pints with your mates. There was Veronica, his wife, and his children. Some of his own sperms had gone into making them so, fuck it, he was responsible for them. But my Jaysis, he’d made one proxy job of it so far. Bimbo’d said he was being too hard on himself; his kids were grand, but Jimmy Sr’d said that that was just good luck and Veronica because he’d had nothing to do with it. But from now on it was going to be different. Darren and Linda and Tracy, and even Leslie, were still young enough, and there’d be Sharon’s little snapper as well. A strong active man in the house, a father figure, would be vital for Sharon’s snapper.” This proves he wants to change, he wants to be a good father. He thinks this in the end of the book. First he supports Sharon, but when everybody 'knows' that mister Burgess is the father, he takes some distance from Sharon. Not for long. Then he has a hard time, he doesn’t believe his daughter. But when anyone says that George Burgess is the father, or says anything else offensive about Sharon, he starts a fight. He loves his daughter very much.
Sharon’s mother Veronica is a main character too, but you don’t really get to know her. She is always in the background. She is a calm person, and she’ll always help the others when they need her. She’s a sweet person, with a good character. When people are having a quarrel she’ll make them calm, and tries to talk with them. She keeps the family together. She was the first one to know that Sharon was pregnant.
Sharon has a lot of brothers and sisters. Jimmy Jr. wants to be a DJ, in the end he gets to do a show at the radio, when one of the DJ’s of a local radiostation needs to go to a wedding. Darren loves cycling, he gets a bike for his birthday. He joins a cycling club, but he gets kicked out of it. Then he starts his own cycling club. You don’t see Leslie very often. Or he's out, or he's searching for work, or he's in bed. Tracy and Linda are twins. At first they are with the majorettes. Their mother is making skirts for them, but then they quit and their mother is very mad. Then they start taking ballroom dancing lessons. You can hear them practice sometimes “Slow-slow-quick-quick-slow.”. Their mother is making them dancing dresses then. When they say they want to quit ballroom dancing, their mother gets really mad. But after Sharon talked to them, they decide to keep doing it anyway
Where? The book plays in Ireland, you can tell by the accent the people in the book have. They talk like: “I don’t know wha’ you’re talkin’ abou’.” You also know because Sharon’s brother Jimmy Jr. wants to be DJ and he always says “This is Jimmy Rabbitte all over Ireland.” Sharon and her family live in a town called Barrytown, they tell this in the book. The story takes place in an environment of unemployment, drinking, a low degree of education and little money. On the other side there’s a great sense of togetherness in the families and the community, it’s very close, I know this because Sharon thought “Soon everybody would know.” after she told her friends she was pregnant. In Barrytown everybody knows each other. It plays most of the time at Sharon’s home, a bar where she often comes and a bar where here dad (Jimmy Sr.) often comes.. When? It plays in a recent past, because there are cars, bikes and freezers. But sometimes it is a bit old fashion, for instance everybody’s shocked when they find out Sharon’s pregnant and she isn’t going to marry the dad of her baby. I don’t think people would react like this now in The Netherlands.
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