Frayn uses the words “officer” and “other ranks” to emphasise the difference between Stephen and Keith. The word “officer” clearly implies a superior person whereas “other ranks” suggests inferiority.
The admiration in which Keith is held is demonstrated on page 12 when Frayn talks about the boys deciding what they are going to do that day, “or rather Stephen’s waiting for Keith to decide.” Another example of how Keith is treated as a hero by Stephen is Stephen’s unwillingness to challenge Keith. On page 31 it has Keith making spelling mistakes, Stephen is unwilling to challenge Keith because he has “reservations about his authority.”
In contrast to Stephen both his father and brother regard Keith in less than heroic terms. On page 22, Stephen’s father dismisses Keith’s belief in relation to the Juice moving into Trewinnick.
My next point is in relation to Keith’s overactive imagination.
Frayn makes it clear with the benefit of adult hindsight that many of the claims that Keith makes must be false. It is Keith for example that Trewinnick, the mysterious house was occupied by the sinister organisation, Juice.
Page 13 has Keith seeing a talking monkey. Other examples of Keith’s overactive imagination include on page 18 how Keith maintains that his father in the Home Guard uniform was really doing under cover work for the secret service.
The main example of Keith’s overactive imagination is when he declares on page 28, that his mother “is a German spy.”
Frayn explains that Keith’s utterance of the phrase “my mother is a German spy” sets the tone for the rest of the novel.
Frayn’s view is that Keith’s words came probably from nowhere and gives credence to Keith’s overactive imagination.
Stephen sees Keith as a representative of a superior and/or perfect family. Stephen describes how Keith goes to school on a racing cycle and has “solidly engineered clockwork racing cars and speed boats.” In contrast Stephen on page 14 explains how not only is his house but also his bedroom unsuitable for any visitors.
“Keith’s playroom is quite separate from his bedroom.” Keith clearly has the benefit of not only a bedroom but also a playroom; Stephen in contrast has to share his bedroom with his older brother Geoff.
Frayn emphasises the gulf between Keith and Stephens bedrooms when he talks about the gulf that exists between the two. He explains that in contrast to Keith, Stephen has to share a bedroom with his brother which contains a “hopeless tangle of string and plasticine and electric flex and forgotten socks and dust……..”
Frayn illustrates the difference between Keith and Stephen by the use of phrases such as “forgotten socks”, this gives an image to the reader of untidiness which is the opposite of Keith who is perfection.
As almost to emphasise the superiority of Keith’s family Frayn explains that even the chicken live “irreproachably elegant lives.” The use of the chickens is a good example of the difference between Keith and Stephen, whereas for Stephen and to most people chickens would not live superior lives. Though Keith and those associated with him do.
Keith is clearly a product of his father’s class conscious self and to a lesser degree of his mothers. Stephen mean while is a more natural/normal child and has none of the inherent prejudices of Keith’s parents.
Stephen accepts without challenge Keith’s status both as a hero and his overactive imagination. This creates the foundation for the story.
We can tell that overall there is defiantly a strong relationship between the two boys, Stephen and Keith. Keith is most defiantly the dominant one and Stephen is his loyal best friend who appears to be subservient to Keith.
It is interesting how Frayn presents Keith so far as being dominant as it also reflects on the wartime childhood with different countries appearing dominant to each other when one country may be winning in the war and the other appearing to be suffering.
