Abduction is a short story written by Shelagh Delaney. The story is about a woman named Ann who takes her much younger brother to London, where she lives, to live with her in her house.
Abduction 3.a
Abduction
“Abduction” is a short story written by Shelagh Delaney.
The story is in contact with subjects like family, hope and caring instinct. The story is about a woman named Ann who takes her much younger brother to London, where she lives, to live with her in her house. She is pampering him with her generous wealth and high hopes. On the whole, she acts as if he was her own child and takes on the role of a controlling but pampering mother. All of this gets serious consequences and the boy ends up dying of alcohol. The title refers to how Ann, in some how, abducted her brother from their both parents in Manchester without considering what would be the best for him.
An unknown narrator, who is obviously a part of the universe of the story, tells the story. It is told in past tense, which means the story has already been occurred. The narrator has a subjective point of view and out of the text we can tell that she is very angry with Ann. The narrator even considers the consequences of killing her. The narrator uses spoken language and also uses a quite informal language and keeps sentences concrete and relatively simple. The story is illustrated as if it was seen from a distance, but even thought we get to know how her younger brother fells about the circumstances. This means that either the narrator is making its own theory and is therefore unreliable, or then the story switches narrator at some point.
Ann, the sister, is a proud and successful paediatrician. When she was young she left her childhood home in Manchester for London as soon as the opportunity came up: “When the best job opportunity, working in a London children’s hospital, came along, she couldn’t get out of Manchester quick enough.” (Page 2). She bought her own house in Kensington and she is spending her time on cultural things such as theatres and art galleries, when she is not working. She loves children but doesn’t think that other people, such as her parents, people know how to raise them correctly. It seems that she got herself sterilised, when she was young. This “act” really doesn’t fit in with her love for children. Maybe she did not want to bring a child into a world, where children are “..tragically lacking security” (page 2) and thought this was the best way to make sure. This could have left an empty space inside herself and therefore she has these maternal instincts witch is being expressed in other more unhealthy ways, like becoming a mother for her younger brother.
