How I Live Now – Techniques Essay Example

see by how much attention Daisy paid to him that she was fascinated by him and he played and key role in her life. Although, in the second part of the book, instead of viewing Edmond as ‘a Wise Dog’, he was seen to be extremely thin, worn and gaunt, and full of hatred and pain. Daisy’s approach towards Edmond was also quite different. In the beginning, all she wanted was more of Edmond, in a lustful sort of way – “I was starving, starving, starving for Edmond”, but in the end, all she wanted was to be there for him, so his emotional scars could heal.

This contrast shows that over the course of the book, Daisy had matured and grown as a person, lost the typical adolescent view of things, and in the end was able to reach out to help someone. However, not only did the writer use imagery in that sense, she also used it to give an idea of how the war transformed Daisy. Often, the idea ‘coming of age’ is associated with coming to grips with the reality of cruelty in the world, and a classic example of this in the novel was the cold-blooded murder of Joe and Major McEvoy. …there was a loud crack and part of Joe’s face exploded and there was blood everywhere…I heard about a hundred shots from a machine gun and the momentum hurled Major M. backwards with blood welling up in holes all over him and this time you could see Joe’s condition was a hundred percent dead with brains splattered everywhere…” Because the scene has a very vivid description, we

know that it was probably an eye-opening experience for Daisy, reminding her that this war was serious.

But it seems that what got to her was what the driver said after the incident– “he turned to us and said in a voice that sounded broken and full of rage, In case anyone needed reminding This Is War. And the way he said those words made me feel like I was falling. ” This shows that Daisy had never experienced anything of that sort before. She was hit hard by this realisation and from that point onwards we could see her mind was focused solely on the survival of Piper and herself.

Another example was when Daisy and Piper arrived at Gateshead Farm, the place that Edmond and Isaac were sent to; it was a place of death and the image of deformed bodies strewn everywhere scarred them. Through witnessing such things, Daisy was able to face reality, but instead of turning the pain inwards and inflicting it upon herself, she turned it into willpower to get Piper and herself back home to safety. This is an example of how Daisy’s character developed to define her as someone who was strong willed with unbreakable determination.

Another technique Rosoff used to present the idea ‘coming of age’ was first-person narrative point of view. This technique allowed us as readers to have a personal insight into the mind of the narrator, which was in this case Daisy, as well as see the world depicted in the story through her eyes. Reading the story in first-person narrative point of view meant that, since Daisy, like any

other human being, didn’t have complete knowledge of everything, I had to go beyond what she was saying and read between the lines to fully understand her point.

It was written in the style ‘stream-of-consciousness’, so there were many run-on sentences as the thoughts flowed straight from her mind, ‘unedited’, therefore reflected her personality and attitude. The text being written in this narrative style also helped us notice when Daisy changed. In the first part of the novel, it was obvious that she had a trivial/casual view on life, judging things at face value, and caring too much about what others thought of her.

For instance, when she saw Edmond smoking she thought “but I don't say anything in case it’s a well-known fact that the smoking age in England is something like twelve and by making a big thing about it I’ll end up looking like an idiot when I’ve barely been here five minutes. ” Another case was on ‘her first conscious day in England’ when she went to check her phone, and all it said was ‘no network’. “I thought Oh boy so much for civilisation and felt a little freaked out and thought of the movie where they say No One Can Hear You Scream. Daisy came from the busy city life in the Big Apple, where everything was at her disposal therefore she took many things for granted, such as communication. However, closer to the end it was visible that Daisy had significantly grown and her thinking had matured, having lost the ‘too cool for school’ attitude. She no longer took things like food for granted (which was

evident when she did not try to starve herself and was actually willing to eat) and she also had a newfound appreciation for life, because of how close she could’ve gotten to being killed or starved to death.

In closing, Meg Rosoff successfully incorporated the techniques imagery and first person narrative point of view into the novel to emphasise the idea ‘coming of age’. The effect of these techniques on the text helped me to thoroughly understand the character Daisy; her motives, feelings, wishes and why she did what she did. By viewing the world through her eyes I was able to relate to her at a personal level.