A Gap of Sky
Growing up can be a hard time, you can feel that you are falling down into a big black hole and are beginning to think that everything doesn’t matter. But in the end you will change and start thinking of all the good things you have done in your life up till now, so you can realize that you actually have a good life and that you can get up and make something out of yourself. In this story we hear about a teenage girl named Ellie who is mentally down she struggles through the whole story to get up from the black hole.
In the beginning of the story the sentences are very short but trough out the story the sentences are getting longer. The text is written en third person narrative, but sometimes sounds like a first person narrator. By looking at the language in the story we can see that Ellie transform, like in the beginning she has a very bad mouth: “…fuck. How the fuck did she manage to sleep for so long?..” (p.2 l. 16) then we can see at the ending, that she is talking in a more adult way.
“… looping between them in great bonds of love”(p. 5 l. 121)
On her way to buy printer ink Ellie ends up in a museum. In here she found a stone that reminds her of her mother, because she has given Ellie one of those. She is here feeling guilty because she realizes that she has been taking her mother for granted her sign of love. You can clearly see her anger and frustration in this sentence: “Whatever, it was still an expression of something, a distilled expression of something, of her mother, of her love, and Ellie had just shoved it away, taken it for granted” (p. 4 ll. 110-111)
On her way to buy the ink her thoughts flies around in her head, she thinks about everything that has with life and death. This is actually making her decide to commit suicide by the river, but she convinces her selves not too, because she is beloved by someone, her mother who she has taken for granted.
It’s actually her mother that helps Ellie not to commit suicide because when she stands in the museum with the stone in her hand, she imagine her mother in front of her in some cloth that Ellie likes. She suddenly feels free and everything seems lighter. “The stone feels pleasant in Ellie’s hand…..”(p. 4 ll. 109-110) “Ellie conjures her mother before her and says her name and in saying it she honours it and gives it back to her. ….filled with something fizzing and alive and beautiful….” (p.4 ll. 115-118)
Through the story Ellie is getting some hints to continue living and be positive in life. She sees a leather glove which middle finger is pointing in to the sky. This glove gets her to think about life, it opens her eyes. “…leather glove… its middle finger raised up to the sky in glorious salute” (p. 3 ll. 61-62) later on, in the story, the title mentioned where she looks into the sky and suddenly sees this gap of sky. It means that it might get dark and cloudy, but there will always be a hole to get out of. She here has the opportunity to choose between going down into the dark and cloudy world, or choose to get through the hole into the brighter side of life.”…and as she turns there is a gap of sky to her right…” (p. 4 ll. 91-92)
We can draw a parallel between the city setting and Ellie’s developing. We can see that the city and Ellie is both changing trough out the story. If we take the city first, in the start it’s being described as a slum district, but in the end we can’t find any negative about it. We can say the same about Ellie, in the start Ellie have a very bad language and doesn’t care about anything, but trough the story she realizes that life is more than just something you can’t take for granted.
Another way to see how she has developed during the story is through the city setting. She walks through London when she realizes who she really is and what she wants and where she is. She realizes that life isn’t a bad thing and that life is worth living.
By looking up the name Ellie, it means most beautiful woman and shining light. This is what Ellie in the end of the story becomes. Maybe it’s because of her name she is that strong and it can symbolize that just because you are fare down in a big black hole you have the light inside you to fight the dark and get away from the bad thing.
The theme in the text is first of all growing up and the fact that you have to develop during your life. Ellie is going through a massive change during the story, she is going from a nineteen years old girl who wants to commit suicide, to a girl who looks forward to live her life and appreciate all the love her mother gives her.
The message of this story is that everybody can change if they want to, they just have to choose the right way and despite of you being in the black hole, there will always be a gap of sky to help you out.