Sunset Song

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What causes Chris to grow up throughout the novel Sunset Song?

Sunset song is a novel written in 1932 by Lewis Grassic Gibbon. It’s the first part of a trilogy called the Scots Quain. Today it is seen as being one of the best classical Scottish novels ever written. The book focuses on Chris’s journey into adulthood.

The story starts off with Chris Guthrie. She’s a nineteen year old girl who is quite naïve about life. She is from a farming family. However unlike most daughters of farmers in those days, she also goes to school and is a grade A student. When she is at school is taught how to speak a more formal dialect than the Scots slang she is used to speaking when she is at home. Chris feels torn between these two lives. Firstly she feels a close connection to the farm and the land but she also has a passion for her studies. There is a line in the novel which talks about there being ‘two Chris’s, ‘So that was Chris and her reading and her schooling, two Chris’s that fought for her heart and tormented her.’ The two Chris’s mentioned are firstly the Chris that is brought up on the farm and secondly the more intellectual Chris who likes to go to school. Chris finds it hard to make the balance between the two. This situation is recognisable to any teenager nowadays who tries to find the balance between their social life and their studies.

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Chris goes through a lot of emotional hardship in her life. the main incident being the death of her mother who committed suicide and also took the life of her two newborn twins with her. This was a huge blow to Chris as she is left with the burden of her Father who tries to abuse Chris and has a very vile temperament especially towards Chris’s schooling. After the death of his life he says to Chris; ‘You’ll be leaving the college now, I’ll warrant education’s dirt and your better clear of it. You’ll find time for dreaming and dirt ...

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