Free Essay

The Red Line

In: English and Literature

Submitted By bobbobbob
Words 1209
Pages 5
The Red Line, By Charles Higson
Analysis
In this short story by Charles Higson we are introduced to three characters (four, including Cathy) that have nothing in common whatsoever. They come from different environments, backgrounds and families. However, as the story proceeds we discover how fragile, weak and alike they become when their fears take over their lives.
I will therefore do a thorough analysis focusing on fear of the unknown as the main theme. In order to do that, I find it important to do a characterization to gain an insight to the four protagonists’ personalities. Berto, Denise and “the nameless guy” are all sitting in the same cabin in The Tube in London. Berto is visiting London trying to find the love of his life, Cathy, an English girl who has visited Berto in
Italy where they have had an affair. To his disappointment he comes to find out that she is in a relationship. She leaves him in the Tube after an argument. He feels very self-conscious about speaking English. He has asked for directions and he hasn’t been able to make himself clear, so the man just laughed at him and it has been very humiliating. Another obstacle for him is his pride. He is on the platform and he is deciding whether he should ask anybody for directions and he keeps making excuses of why he shouldn’t. The old women are deaf, some of the men seem drunk and so on. Nobody is good enough. He is actually ashamed of asking for the cherub’s help. (“Why was he ashamed to ask a man for help? He was a stranger here”). He doesn’t want to appear helpless (“He felt very small and foolish”), and thus lose his masculinity. That is very characteristic for the Italian culture. Men are often afraid of showing their weaknesses because they think that they will become vulnerable if they do. What Berto doesn’t realize is how much he is losing by giving in to his pride.
If he had asked someone for help sooner he would be on his way to Cathy’s in stead of being a victim of his destiny and being killed.
Berto is also very stubborn and he won’t accept the fact that Cathy doesn’t want the kind of relationship that he does. He doesn’t understand that it was a one-night-stand, or as Cathy said “… an open relationship”. He will not give up, so he finally asks someone for help (which is probably the worst fear he has as a person because he feels that his lack of control and power over the situation is being exposed). Even though he is killed by the person he speaks to, it is a relief to him, because it’s not until he sees a trickle of his own blood, creating a red line, that he remembers the way to Cathy. Metaphorically speaking, the black line, which he is travelling on, has been the way to death. His pride and his fear of talking to strangers have been destroying him. When he steps out of his comfort-zone he remembers the directions that Cathy’s boyfriend has given him earlier before his “development”, where he hasn’t understood anything.
Studieportalen.dk
On the exterior, the immediate impression of the nameless man is that of an angel. He is described as a man with “small feet and hands, they were so dainty and delicate”. The fact that he has rid himself of all his hair, except from his golden locks, purifies him. He is even credited as a cherub by
Berto. As far as his appearances go, he is angel-like. But the façade does not save him from his twisted personality. He hates change and thinks that the world should revolve around him. He has been very disturbed by the fact that the bar he used to go to has changed from being a karaoke bar, where they played decent music like Bob Seger, to Elvis and black music. He went to another pub but there were only drug addicts and “girls with dirty hair”. To escape from society he would go home and stand in front of his mirror, naked watching his own perfect reflection. Yet, he could not break away from the imperfect “hairy” world, he could see it from his window.
He fears this change because he’s not in control. There is nothing he can do about people not being
“perfect” like him. He is insecure of himself and therefore he finds comfort in his routines by shaving off his body hair while staring at his own reflection and washing his curls twice a day.
The day he had gone to the pub and they didn’t play Bob Seger anymore, he decided to stop the world from changing. He was determined to take action.
When he sees Berto in the train he is his perfect victim. Berto is everything he fears and despises.
He is everything he is trying to run away from. He is “covered in hair”. Berto is listening to a tape.
The man assumes that it is a tape with black music, which only arouses an even greater hatred because that is the music that the pub played in stead of Bob Seger. The man feels that Berto is the kind of guy that is ruining London, but the real reason for his anger is that deep down he feels that he himself is being ruined by him. When Berto asks for help, the cherub stabs him and walks away.
As far as her looks go, Berto describes Denise as a typical English girl, with a fresh, pretty, open face. Denise’s fear is different from the other characters’. Hers is quite prominent and obvious.
There’s not one thought that goes by her mind that doesn’t involve dread for masculinity. (“But how did you stop people looking at you? There – he’d done it again. He’d eyed her up. Jesus!”). It can be perceived as if she suffers from some sort of paranoia. She also represents the fear that is in all women (“Every man was a potential rapist. Every time you left your flat you were a potential victim”). She may just lack the understanding of the opposite sex which wouldn’t be odd, since her boyfriend, Neil, has laughed at her when she tried to discuss her fears with him.
In conclusion, these characters all refuse to get involved with other people, being afraid that other people may get involved with them. That would also require that the characters got in touch with themselves, with their inner fears. The nameless man shaves all his hair off, to make himself believe that everything is perfect, and he hates everyone who doesn’t. Denise fears every man, but really she is being destroyed by it and is clueless on what to do with herself. Berto is ashamed to ask for help showing his weakness because that would be admitting his fears.
Studieportalen.dk
The way I see it; this story (and life, for that matter) has fooled us to think that we are afraid of strangers, what we think of, as the unknown, when what is really unknown, what we are really trying to escape are ourselves.

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

The Red Line Essay

...The Red Line The short story ”The Red Line” written by Charles Higson’s in 1993, takes place in the centre of London. The story deals with three extremely different people who all happens to meet each other while riding the tubes of London, which takes a dramatic turn. Furthermore I will analyse and interpret the short story with special focus on narrative technique and the creation of suspense. In this short story we are introduced to an Italian man, named Berto. He used to live in Venice, where he met a girl who he believes to be his “girlfriend”, Cathy, who is English. They met in Venice where they had a “relationship”, but they spent most of their time in bed, partly because of Berto's lacking skill of speaking English. Furthermore Berto seems to be a very naive and persistant kind of person. He's naive in a way because he believes that he and Cathy actually were in a relationship, he may not have understood the things that Cathy told him back in Venice, because when he arrives in London he finds that Cathy is in this “open relationship” with another man, with whom they spent a lot of time with. Berto is persistent because even when finds out that Cathy is in this other relationship and has been, even before the two of them met each other, he still keeps on trying to be with Cathy, he clearly seems to be in love. One last thing we can tell about Berto from hos behaviour is that he is very shy. The only to why he keeps sitting in the tubes is because he is way too afraid...

Words: 1179 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

The Red Line

...The Red Line Three individual persons are traveling in the underground tube in London – seemingly, they have nothing in common except for being at the same place at the same time, but somehow they influence each other, and one of them ends up being stabbed. That is what this realistic short story written by Charles Higson in 1993 is about – it draws attention to and questions the daily prejudices, misunderstood intentions, and their consequences. In order to give an adequate interpretation of this story I will focus on the main characters, the shifting narrative point of view, the title, the symbolism, and the theme of this story. The three main characters Berto, Denise, and an unnamed man are on the black line in the tube. The Italian, Berto, can't remember which line to take to get to the English girl, Cathy, who he is visiting. He is scared to ask anyone for directions because of the language barrier, but when he finally gets the courage to ask Denise for directions, she runs out of the train. Denise is scared that Berto might be a rapist and is taking the run to save her life. Now Berto has to ask the unnamed man for directions, but when he approaches him the unnamed man stabs him. Berto then realizes that he has to take the red line to get to Denise's. The first main character being introduced in this story is the unnamed man with a face like an angel. He removes all of his body hair and showers twice a day to be perfect. I will define him as a narcissist, “They...

Words: 1105 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

The Red Line

...The Red Line, Charles Higson 1993 Find and discuss the aspects of prejudice highlighted in the story. There’re many aspects of prejudice in the story. The three characters Berto, Denise and the nameless man are drawing conclusions just like they know each other, which they don’t. Berto believes that when he tries to express himself on English, the other person will laugh or shook his head. He believes that old people are no help for him, because they’re all deaf, but drunken people are still the worst. He thinks women are more understanding and sympathetic than men. He thinks that the nameless man looks friendly and his face looks like a cherub, so he considers him as an option for help. The nameless man hates drunken people, drug addicts and girls with dirty hair. He doesn’t hate them because of their personalities, because he obviously doesn’t know them. He just hates the way they look. When he sees Berto, who is dark-skinned, at the train, he claims he’s the type that ruins London – the type that goes to discos and clubs, a drug taker and a hooligan, and he believes Berto is listening to black music. Denise immediately thinks that Berto is a rapist, when he eyes her up in the train. According to her every man could be a rapist. She considers getting a car instead of riding with the train, but then there are car thieves, crashes, men in vans swearing at you and those horrible hyenas in the TV ads. She smiles to the nameless man to see, if he was any help in case Berto...

Words: 743 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

The Red Line - Noter

...The red line fremlæggelse - noter 3 hovedpersoner - fortælleren skifter synsvinkel gennem hele historien. 1. Vi får ikke hans navn, men han er en kikset type = the nameless man.. “He dreamt that one day he might go on television, do his routine and win a big prize, enough money to be able to afford to go to America, maybe even visit where Bob lived.” Tænker meget over hvordan han ser ud: “Twice a day he washed his hair, so that it gleamed like precious metal.”   - Hans karaoke bliver udskiftet med en DJ.. :“Why couldn’t people just leave things alone, instead of wanting to change, change, change all the time?”                                                                                                        - Afhængig af sit udseende, og af at blive set og få opmærksomhed /Narciscisme: “Desperate, he’d searched for another pub.”                       - Han tror han er bedre end alle andre (arrogant) = “The pub just filled with up with drunks, drug addicts, girls with dirty hair. He hated these people.” - Ser på Berto på en rascistisk måde (racist) = v“Who the fuck did he think he was, the greasy ape? Look at him. He was just the type who was ruining London”. 2. Berto = italiener som følger gamle traditioner og ikke forstår det moderne samfund. “She’d told him about something called a “trial separation” and an “open relationship”, and even though he looked the words up, he still didn’t understand what they meant.” ————— Er bange for “the modern society”. ———————...

Words: 735 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Boston Subway System

...Boston Subway System “One of the biggest plans unveiled by Governor Patrick is a $1.3 billion project by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to replace and increase the capacity of the 44-year-old Red Line subway cars and the 32-year-old Orange Line cars.”It was reported by the Associated Press in the news “Patrick announces major transportation projects” on the website “http://www.boston.com” on October 22, 2013. We take trains frequently in our daily life in Boston. It’s good news for the people living here. The subway system is an important part of Boston transportation, which has a long history of over one hundred year. But it is too antiqued for the contemporary people, so there are many suggestions and projects to improve the subway system. Compared with the Wuhan subway system, I think some suggestions and projects are impractical for the improvement of Boston subway system, therefore I want to oppose them. Most of the people in Boston thought that the subway system lacks late-night or overnight service. People want to extend the service hours.(Annear) But from my point of view, the Boston subway system’s service hours should be reduced. First, I often ride the orange line at night when I go to the school gym to do some exercise after supper and stay very late. So I can know that very few people ride trains after 10:00 p.m; there are usually less than ten people inside every subway car. It is obvious that the extension of service hours is a waste...

Words: 794 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

The Good Doc

...The Red Line The Red Line is a short story written by Charles Higson in 1993. It takes place in the centre of London. We are following three different points of views, from three completely different people. In the beginning of the story we are in Oval where we meet this cherub looking guy. His skin is white as milk, he is plumb and he has got golden curly locks on his head. He is very vain and does not tolerate any body hair. He is also very obsessed about being clean and washes himself twice a day to be so. His biggest interest is karaoke. Every Friday night he goes to The Brunswick to sing songs by Bob Seger, his big hero. He studies the music videos to do the dance moves perfectly, and when he is singing karaoke, he feels superior. We are also told that he is a racist. It seems very important to him to be as white and as clean as possible. Also, when The Brunswick is being made into a dance club instead of a karaoke club, he talks about “black disco music” being something disgusting. Later on he also talks about the Italian man, Berto, and that he looks like a monkey with all his body hair. He feels that people like Berto, visitors as well as immigrants, are ruining London. Berto is an Italian guy who comes to London to visit Cathy, an English girl he met in Venice. They had a holiday relationship and spend a lot of time together, especially in bed. Berto does not understand a lot of English, and little does he speak it, but he did understand to come visit her...

Words: 1105 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Hej Med Dig

...Studieportalen.dk The Red Line The Red Line is a short story written by Charles Higson in 1993. It takes place in the centre of London. We are following three different points of views, from three completely different people. In the beginning of the story we are in Oval where we meet this cherub looking guy. His skin is white as milk, he is plumb and he has got golden curly locks on his head. He is very vain and does not tolerate any body hair. He is also very obsessed about being clean and washes himself twice a day to be so. His biggest interest is karaoke. Every Friday night he goes to The Brunswick to sing songs by Bob Seger, his big hero. He studies the music videos to do the dance moves perfectly, and when he is singing karaoke, he feels superior. We are also told that he is a racist. It seems very important to him to be as white and as clean as possible. Also, when The Brunswick is being made into a dance club instead of a karaoke club, he talks about “black disco music” being something disgusting. Later on he also talks about the Italian man, Berto, and that he looks like a monkey with all his body hair. He feels that people like Berto, visitors as well as immigrants, are ruining London. Berto is an Italian guy who comes to London to visit Cathy, an English girl he met in Venice. They had a holiday relationship and spend a lot of time together, especially in bed. Berto does not understand a lot of English, and little does he speak it, but he did understand to...

Words: 1199 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Analysis of "The Red Lin"

...The Red line Analysis The short story takes place in London. We know this because the different sections in the story are named after subway stations in London; another way we can tell is the characters statements about the city: “Cathy had been at work, so the boyfriend had shown him around London” (p. 64, l. 25 - 26). The story unfolds in the subway’s underground system of London in the late 19’hundreds but could as well be set as today, because the way our characters describe their surroundings: “You couldn’t walk, always it had to be busses and what the English called the tubes” (p. 64, l. 29-30). Here we get an impression of a modern city where everything has to be fast and there is no time to waste. All of the main characters meet in the underground system at the end of the story. All the characters are placed here and throughout the story we hear their individual stories and get an impression of how they are and how their personalities are, these flashbacks and changes between the different characters can make it confusing at the beginning of the story, but at the end it makes good sense. This is a post modernistic narrative technique, and it is used because we have to hear the story from everyone’s point of view, to understand what is going on. I think the narrator has chosen the city of London because it’s a modern world city where everything has to go fast and it’s easy to get confused like Berto got. The title is called The Red Line. I think the narrator probably...

Words: 639 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

The Role of Sound in the Thin Red Line

...The Role of Sound in The Thin Red Line Terrence Malick attempts to recreate a part of the war in the pacific on screen through the use of a variety of techniques in The Thin Red Line (1998). One of the most prevalent of these techniques is the use of sound in the movie. Unlike the majority of war movies this movie doesn’t feature a soundtrack that glorifies the battle scenes. The presence of periodic narration and a focus on natural sounds like wind and water moving across the landscape also set this film apart. These audio features combine flawlessly with video to create a very deep and seemingly realistic depiction of the horrors of war. There is little, if any, soundtrack in the intense scenes of battle. This stands out in contrast to the blockbuster action flicks that portray intense action as thrilling and exciting with high tempo musical scores. By creating this contrast with typical action movies Malick lets the audience know that this movie should not go down the same way as the latest Rambo movie does. When a musical soundtrack is present it is often sad and low or it is associated with the environment of the film, such as native islanders singing or sticks drumming against one another. The toned-down soundtrack gives the movie a more authentic feel. The musical soundtrack is most lighthearted when Pvt. Witt is with the natives, separated from the army and civilization. Malick also uses the soundtrack to highlight shifts in emotional scenes. An excellent example...

Words: 660 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Jesus

...____________________________________________________  PHONE______________________________________________  EMAIL_______________________________________________  CHURCH_____________________________________________  DONATION AMOUNT__________________________________  TO DONATE BY CREDIT/DEBIT CARD, PLEASE ANSWER THE FOLLOWING: Response Cards CC#______________________________________  EXP._______________  SEC# (3 DIGITS ON BACK)________________CARD ZIP  CODE___________  NOTE: WE WILL SHRED INFO AFTER CARD IS CHARGED.  IF YOU DONATE $50 OR MORE, PLEASE FILL OUT THIS ORDER FORM: T‐SHIRT SIZE__________ (MAN/WOMAN) IF YOU DONATE $500 OR MORE, YOU GET A $100 GIFT CERTIFICATE TO ALPHA’S AUTO DETAIL Organization Name Organization Information Your business tag line here. This would be a good place to insert a short  paragraph about your organiza on. It  might include the purpose of the  organiza on, its mission, founding date,  and a brief...

Words: 444 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Insignificant Gestures

...“Insignificant Gestures” “Insignificant Gestures” is a short story written by Jo Cannon in 2007. The story deals with the narrator’s experiences as a young expatriate doctor in Africa and how they have influenced him and his life. The conditions in Africa when the narrator worked there where very rough and characterised by poverty. The only consolation in his otherwise gloomy everyday life was Celia, the native servant working for him. Celia shared his passion for drawing and lit up his existence. When she by an unfortunately accident dies, the narrator is crushed and filled with guilt. To forget about the events in Africa he retrains as psychiatrist since he cannot bear to witness another death. The narrator of the story is a first person non-omniscient speaker who tells the story in past tense. The story is composed of a series of flashbacks which the narrator is looking back upon from the “present” where he is now working as a psychiatrist. All the flashbacks take place in Africa and are memories of Celia and his life living there. Celia Dimba, the narrator’s housekeeper, is a native African. Even though the narrator is against having a servant, based on the immoral symbolism associated with them, he is convinced by the argument, that Celia’s family’s wellbeing depends on her. Celia is never in any kind of hard labour which is partly because of the narrator’s simple life and long working hours but also because of the fact that, he feels ashamed of the conservative...

Words: 1049 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Chain Line Report

...reasrencesost of ich, vides theegReport of Homework 1 Chain Line Part * Introduction There are 24 betas provided and 4-5 chain lines on each beta. Our first job is to determine whether the chain lines on these betas are parallel. The significance of this part of work lies in casting light to our further studies on finding a chain lines’ pattern match between two paintings. * Result explanation Betas have all chain lines parallel: 83.3% Betas have at least one non-parallel chain line: 16.7% Betas have at least one parallel pair: 100% With our procedures, we consider 83.3% betas to have all chain lines parallel. 16.7% betas have at least one chain line that is not parallel with others. But all betas have at least one parallel pair. We set a human error range and achieve our result on the basis of this range. The portion of betas that have at least one non-parallel chain line will goes up if we narrow down the human error range. * Process 1) Human error range determination The chain lines on betas are not ideal lines. They are white long thin areas with a certain width, which will easily induce some human errors when we try to locate a coordinate of a point on the line. Hence human error range determination should be done before we start to look into parallel chain lines. First, we randomly choose a chain line and try to mark the leftmost side and the rightmost side of it. We picked the second chain line on tile RVR 122 B78ii Betadpi400. We took about 50...

Words: 1682 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Summary of Dan Edelmans' "The Thin Red Line"

...Many people change their appearances and lives due to the influences of the social powers that our society has created. The definition of what is beautiful can involve standards that may appear impossible to reach for most people. These standards can require people to go to the extreme of risking their lives with cosmetic surgery or developing eating disorders to obtain their goal of being what they perceive as beautiful. People do many things based off of the influences of society, these can consist of: Circumcision, Eating Disorders, Body Building, Cosmetic Surgery, and Body Art. The major influences of these are The Media, Religions, and what people in societies have determined is socially acceptable. Abbie J. Chessler (1997) “Conformity is a powerful social force that perpetuates circumcision of both male and females” (Para. 6). For women in certain places being uncircumcised meant that the individual was unmarriageable. The purpose of female circumcisions was to control their sexuality for patriarchal reasons. As for men circumcision was a religious ritual that in modern day became a way to prevent hazardous health conditions. Eating Disorders are caused by individuals that have a perfectionist point of view in relation to their own body. The media creates an image of having no body fat that many define as perfection when it comes to beauty; this causes insecurities in people that think that they do not meet this measurement of 3 appearance, leading...

Words: 642 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

I Shall Paint My Fingernails Red

...Carole Satymurti’s “I Shall Paint my Nails Red” is a wonderful poem which I found myself closely relating to. I feel that in this poem she reflects many sides of a woman’s life. It may be understood to have two separate messages, the direct and the hidden message. Satymurti does this through showing both the complexity of a woman’s life, and the simplicity that also exists within. At first glance, “I Shall Paint My Nails Red” gives a more obvious and direct amusing message in which she states different reasons why she would paint her nails red. Each line puts the reader in a different situation which may even be applied to our own daily lives. Satymurti does this by using every day examples and using them to suggest often absurd reasons for her to paint her nails red, adding a bit of comedy throughout the poem. Underlying each idea, however, Satymurti implies a deeper message about women and the many roles that they play in society, and the way that they view themselves. The first idea Satymurti suggests in the poem is, “Because a bit of colour is public service”. Here, she is implying that in painting her nails red she is in fact doing others a favor. This line makes me think of a woman loading her groceries onto the cash register before paying, showing off her bright red nails and provoking a smile on the cashiers face. She seems to believe that anywhere she were to go with these red nails, the world would see them and appreciate them. Underlying this main idea however...

Words: 1564 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Business Research Analysis

...Marketing Research for New Product of Red Bull 6 March 2015 Business Research/Analysis - BMDS 6340 Final Group Paper Spring I, 2015 Table of Contents Introduction 3 Company Background 4 History of Red Bull 4 SWOT analysis of Red Bull 5 Current business market environment and competitor’s analysis 6 Management dilemma against new product 7 Product offering and market strategy 9 Product Offering 9 Market Strategy 9 Research design and analysis 10 Research design and testing 10 Research findings 11 Business Strategy development and implementation 12 Business strategy development 12 Business strategy implementation 13 Conclusion 14 Introduction To keep itself competitive and ensure long-term sustainability of the business, companies keep on making effort to innovate and revitalize their product and service portfolio. Such practices require substantial efforts in researching the consumer demands or expectations, assessing product feasibility and identification of potential market opportunities. The insights derived from such efforts plays critical role in developing and supporting various strategic decisions taken by company to expand its business scope and explore new business opportunities. The market research is performed by the companies to solve certain specific business objectives, among which the exclusive purpose can be mentioned as: assess the revenue generation prospect of the business opportunities, evaluate the competitiveness of the company, identification...

Words: 3961 - Pages: 16