Gulf Gulf by Robert Westall is a breathtaking novel seen through the eyes of a boy named Tom. In this story Tom gives a recount of the past events of his life during the Gulf war. In this essay I will be looking closely at Tom's little brother Andy A....

Gulf

Gulf by Robert Westall is a breathtaking novel seen through the eyes of a boy named Tom. In this story Tom gives a recount of the past events of his life during the Gulf war. In this essay I will be looking closely at Tom’s little brother Andy A.K.A Figgis and how he and his family change during this book. This story revolves around a boy named Figgis who has the strange supernatural ability to look into other people’s lives; in their eyes. The problem starts when Figgis starts to see the life of a small boy soldier in Iraq. The boy named Latif slowly takes over Figgis’ body.

Figgis is strange but smart character which makes him very interesting. The thing that makes Figgis slightly different from other people is his special ability to see what other people are seeing many miles away. Figgis is brought up in a mainstream family who care very much for him. Figgis’ brother Tom cares about him the most as they share a special bond. The bond was created from the minute Figgis was born. The relationship happened because; before Figgis was born Tom had an imaginary friend to keep him company, he was very close to this friend and when Figgis came along he replaced Tom’s imaginary friend. Ever since they have kept that special relationship. An important thing that the reader learns from the start of this story is that you can still be loved or liked very much no matter how different you can be from other people.

During the first few chapters Tom gives the reader several things that build up and prepare them for what is about to happen. The things that help prepare the reader for what happens, is Figgis’ “things”, the obsessions like the “Lolly-stick” “Charlie Mbjumo” and “Bossa”. These are the strange things Figgis foresees taking place. The main thing that prepares the reader for a change in Figgis are the sentences “Until last year, we’d still have called ourselves a typical ordinary English family” and “Every thing was hunky-dory and then it happened” These sentences tell the reader that there is ...

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In the beginning of the book Figgis is like any other ordinary boy except for his special ability and his “things”. As the book progresses to the point where Figgis has been completely taken over by Latif’ he becomes very tired often and falls asleep during the day. He feels the need to scratch himself even if he is not itchy, starts dropping places in class and his appearance changes making him look scared and jumpy and giving him hot looking eyes. The change in the family is that they start having more arguments and tom’s parents “seem old and defeated”.

In the end the story is resolved as Figgis returns back to his normal self, without his special ability. The outcome of the event has brought the family closer together, and made Tom’s parents less active. The main idea that I think Robert Westall was trying to convey during this book is that war is more tragic than it seems on TV and that both sides of a war always think they are the ones doing good. I think that Robert Westall has expressed his thoughts very well and portrayed what a war is like very well.

580 words

By Wilson Ong