Option Two – General vision and viewpoint Never Let Me Go Brooklyn


to Brooklyn is glossed over. Eilis is a rather simplistic heroine but we do not like her any less for that. Her overwhelmingly positive experiences provide us with a far more optimistic and uplifting vision of the world than the vision in Never Let Me Go, which is created by the harsh treatment Kathy suffers.


Philadelphia, Here I Come!


During Kate’s visit to say goodbye, Gar subjects her to a furious tirade about the failings of his home town, saying, ‘If I had to spend another week in Ballybeg, I’d go off my bloody head! This place would drive anybody crazy!’ He claims Ballybeg is a ‘hole’, a ‘quagmire’ and ‘a dead end’ and that he relishes the chance to live in a place of ‘Impermanence [and] anonymity’. This reminds us of the pathetic figure of Master Boyle, who said much the same thing. This connection between the two characters adds to our pessimism about Gar’s future. He seems so full of self-pity that it is unlikely he will ever face his own role in his unhappiness. If we contrast this with Kathy’s quiet, selfless grace or Eilis’s determination to make a better life for herself, we can see that the character of Gar plays an important role in creating a rather bleak and depressing vision and viewpoint in the text.


Relationships between characters can influence our sense of the general vision and viewpoint.


The relationship between Tommy and Kathy in Never Let Me Go reinforces the pessimistic vision and viewpoint of the text. The complicated love triangle between Kathy, Tommy and Ruth gives us little hope for a positive outcome early in the text. Ruth, who does not really care for Tommy, nonetheless begins a relationship with him and does her best to keep him and Kathy apart. However, our hopes are temporarily raised when Tommy and Kathy finally become a couple after Ruth has admitted near the end of her life, ‘It should have always been you two’. The tragedy is that once they are together, Tommy and Kathy cannot change the dreadful fate that lies in store for them. The key moment that most clearly shows this occurs when Tommy and Kathy visit Madame and Miss Emily in the hope of securing one of the ‘deferrals’, which they have heard may be offered to clones who can prove they are truly in love. They soon learn that there are no deferrals and that the rumour of them is only a desperate hope the young people cling to before


The view of relationships in Brooklyn is very different from that in Never Let Me Go. In the film, love is seen as a positive force that has the ability to change people’s lives for the better. Therefore, the vision and viewpoint in Brooklyn is far more optimistic than that in Never Let Me Go.


Certainly, there are complications, like in Never Let Me Go, but these are resolved in a far more uplifting way in the film than in the book. For example, there is a love triangle in each text, but it causes far less pain in the film than in the novel. In Brooklyn, the difficulty arises when Eilis, who married the loving and supportive Tony in New York, returns home and begins to fall for the charming and eligible Jim Farrell. The difference between this situation and that in the novel is that Tony, although worried, does not have to watch Eilis and Jim together whereas Kathy is forced to stand by miserably as Ruth parades her relationship with


The view of relationships in Philadelphia, Here I Come! is the most negative of the three texts; therefore, it has the strongest impact on the general vision and viewpoint. While the relationship between Kathy and Tommy is doomed, they are at least together as a couple for a time. In Philadelphia, Here I Come!, Gar and Kate never have this chance as Gar is incapable of making a case for himself as a suitable husband for Kate. As a result, her father steers her into a marriage with Dr Francis King. Gar is deeply wounded by this and his expression of pain reinforces the negative vision and viewpoint of the text; he says that the memory of Kate’s marriage ‘has left a deep scar on the aul skitter of a soul’.


The world of the play is one in which love is not enough to keep a couple together. Gar is not as wealthy as Francis King; therefore, he is not as attractive a marriage prospect. Kate does not seem particularly happy in her marriage, despite


Leaving Certificate English 433 Excellence in Texts


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