How to … WRITE PARAGRAPHS
The meat of your essay
The what?
The why?
The how?
An example
The main protagonist, Grace, despite suddenly being put in a wheelchair, stays positive. She goes to university and she falls in love with Oscar. She finds ways to “fly right out of that chair of her’s” by using the journal that becomes “my legs”, showing that she has “got balls”. This shows that she lives her life and suggests that when we come up against challenges it’s best to face them positively.
In contrast, the other important character, Charlie, tries to run away from the fact that he caused the crash that puts his sister in a wheelchair. He takes “pills, grog, the lot” and becomes “an unguided missile” who gets involved in crime. Additionally, he finally runs to the Vietnam War which is hell on earth rather than admit what he has done. He destroys his life and this suggests that he can’t cope with what he has done. It seems that he is setting a bad example to the readers when he is faced with a challenge. He is an example of what not to do when life gets hard.
What is clear from Spillane’s comparison of his two main characters is that there are different ways to approach challenges. Charlie doesn’t face his challenges and Grace does. Grace lives a fuller and happier life and Charlie’s life is lonely and damaged. What this means is that we, as readers, are forced to decide which way they would deal with challenges that they face in their own lives. By Charlie’s self destructive life, Patrick Spillane is showing us that Grace’s choice is much more positive and therefore when we face challenges we need to find way to “fly out of [our] chairs”.
Summary