The Grown up The transition from childhood to adolescence is one of the most dramatic times of development and change in our lives. This is the time, when one is in the process of creating “who you are” and “awake” to a whole new world and future. You suddenly become a fully aware spectator of your surroundings, the behaviour of your superiors and the opposite gender. Even if change, and thereby adolescence, can be bewildering and challenging it’s an inevitable part of life. This is exactly the focal point of chapter seven, “The Grown-up” of Ian McEwan’s short story, “The Daydreamer” (1994). The reader is introduced to “The Grown-up” through a figurative description of the landscape and from here the actual plot begins. The narrator is third person but limited to the protagonist Peters head. It’s mainly told from his point of view and in that way the audience gain sympathy for him. The short-story is written in main sentences with very few subsidiary sentences and the language is kept simple, although you might stumble across some sophisticated words such as “scurrying” and “jostling”. “The Grown-up” can be read by children and adults alike although, of course, adults are able to interpret the message in a different way than children. It appeals to both categories since the stories within “The Daydreamer” tell Peters childhood. The plot revolves around Peter Fortune and “The Grown-up” takes place on the Cornish coast of Cornwall. The Cornish coast is told to hold many secrets and there many legends and extraordinary tales of the supernatural linked to the place. Peter is a boy with an, one might say, overly active imagination which often causes him to drift off to the land of daydreaming. He has previously been labelled as difficult by the adults because he enjoys being by himself thinking his thoughts. Previously it has been mentioned1 that the adults often would ask him what he’s thinking about, because it’s impossible to know what someone is thinking if they keep quiet about it - which Peter mostly does. His daydreams are almost always inspired by his surroundings and he often events stuff which is useful in the daydreams situation. In the adult-life Peter is an inventor1 so in truth, Peter is quite talented and gifted with his imagination. He doesn’t daydream in order to escape from reality or because he finds life boring, as other people might do. Instead, Peter loosens his thought-process, tries to find solutions to unexplored options and in that way his daydreams become just as real as anything else, even though the adults doesn’t seem to understand him. Throughout the “The Daydreamer” Peter grows - he is 10 in the very beginning and in his 12th year in “The Grown-up”. In this very chapter he is confronted with differences between adolescence and childhood. The contrast between the children and the adults is made very clear through the way the two groups spend their day. The Beach Gang, which is a group made up by Peter along with four other children, is carefree and never worries about the hour of the day as opposed to the adults who almost never have “fun” (p. 130 l. 7). The adults are presented as boring, restless and busy people who has a hard time enjoying a holiday (p. 131 l. 19). Standing in between those two “groups” is the 19-yearold girl Gwendoline. From Peter’s point of view Gwendoline is different from the adults (p. 131 l. 21). She is in fact a grown-up but acts differently from them. He notices her quite a lot - for instance her starring at him (p. 129). This might suggest a beginning transition from childhood to adolescence because he can’t explain his sudden interest. One evening Peter gets into an argument with one of the boys from the gang. The trouble begins over something as simple as a chocolate bar and leads to Peter walking off on his own (p. 133 l. 10). He then stands facing the cottages where the adults are. Finding himself standing between the two groups, Peter grasps around the fact that he is going to leave The Beach Gang one day to join the adults (p. 134 l. 8). In truth, small confrontations can be good for you as they often lead you to think about something you’d never consider otherwise. This is exactly what Peter does and in his next daydream he finds himself transformed into an adult. During his dream Peter changes from his 12-year-old self to a real grown-up. He now holds the responsibility of a job as an inventor. His rhetoric even becomes more sophisticated as opposed to his other daydreams where he still talks like his “young” self. He’s no longer the 11-year- old Peter in someone else’s body as he is in “The Cat” where he still experiences the world as a child. He is an older version of himself and now appreciates the sensation of dreaming in a way he hasn’t done previously. He observes and is attracted to Gwendoline’s physical appearance, as someone with more life experience would be. It could be suggested that Ian McEwan intentionally chose the name Gwendoline for the female character. The name is of welsh origin and the welsh gwen means “holy”. One could argue that the usage of “gwen” (bear in mind the meaning holy) could, in some way, refer to daydreaming as being something spiritual. It’s this idea of the body being chained in the everyday life and a way to take care of ourselves is this brief moment of disconnection from one’s present reality. A daydream might not be real but it can feel as real as anything and through dreaming we free ourselves of worry and escape into a stage of liberation. Ian McEwan is a fair user of imagery. Imagery is used to appeal to our senses and create a certain mood. He emphasizes the feeling of liberty by using a metaphors like “..he might float off to the tops of the trees.” (p. 140 l. 6) and “..melting away” (p. 140 l. 17). Apart from describing the feeling of affection between a man and a female it supports the thought of something supernatural becoming possible. Metaphors like these emphasize the idea of the story and make the reader relate to the characters situation. “The Grown-up” has a very similar message to “The Baby’s”. In both dreams Peter wakes to find himself transformed into someone he previously found “repulsive”. In both dreams he sees the world from somebody else’s perspective and afterwards always feels differently about them (p. 143 l. 7). After every dreams he wakes to find himself more accepting towards other beings and their nature. Ian McEwan makes a point which is this; when trying to understand other individuals we always do it by assumptions but the more profound one’s access to imagination is, the more profound your understanding and connection to others, humans or animals, will be. That is no matter how superficial it might seem. “The Grown-up” ends with Peter sprinting towards the water’s edge. He feels like he’s about to take off (p. 144 l.10). He’s ready for the future and ready to take on anything that lies ahead. Nothing ever waits around for us - not time or people. Life will always take off to the horizon and carry us under its broad wings. When we’re in the stage of youth we’re all in the process of “waking up” and finding out who we really are, what we like and what we stand for. The whole future is lying ahead of us as wild and wavering as the ocean (p. 143 l. 16-19). Our “self” will sort of play the game of hide and seek with itself. It gets lost, gets involved in adventures but in the end it always wakes up and comes back to itself - possibly different but still itself. When we “lose” ourselves to daydreaming we’re free to traverse through any far flung thought and we try on any scenario that we find interesting at the moment. And isn’t that how we become more fully ourselves?

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[ 1 ]. Introducing Peter