Touch Me, by James Moloney employs choice/selection of detail to encourage/invite readers to feel empathy and sympathy towards Xavier Mclachlan, the key protagonist of this teenage novel.

Authors Avatar

TOUCH ME

Essay

Touch Me, by James Moloney employs choice/selection of detail to encourage/invite readers to feel empathy and sympathy towards Xavier Mclachlan, the key protagonist of this teenage novel. This is how Moloney positions the reader to respond, however the unique feature of this novel is what Moloney does with the detail he selects for his novel. The selected material is conveyed using 3rd person limited omniscient point of view and portrayed through not only Xavier Mclachlan, but also his love interest in the novel, Nuala Magee. Moloney uses these mechanics to create the construction of the structure of this novel.

The teenage target audience relate and respond through Xavier Mclachlan. Moloney portrays Xavier positively as an honest determined individual, and invites the reader to follow his life experiences that revolve around rugby and relationships. The point of view, which works as a vehicle for the selection of detail, plays an extremely important role in the construction of this narrative. It allows Moloney to convey the story in many ways that work positively for the novel and intrigue the reader. Whilst Moloney thinks he has discovered a perfect formula for involving teenage readers into this novel, there are some negative side effects of using this limited omniscient point of view. The adjustment Moloney has made to the traditional 3rd person point of view technique is an original addition to this book and it adds the extra ingredient that is needed to make Touch Me a unique novel. Alternating between Xavier and Nuala, who move in and out of limited point of view allows the rugby passages to reinforce and assist the real game that is being played. The story of Xavier Mclachlan, and the unique relationship he has with Nuala Magee.

A positive feature which has positive effects on Touch Me, is the use of having both Xavier and Nuala alternating in the 3rd person limited point of view. Moloney does not employ this technique that often, but it works perfectly, and in a positive way because it allows further development of the Nuala character, where as before we only had Xavier's point of view on Nuala and her actions. The readers are now more informed about why Magee is like she is. The prologue belongs to Nuala, even though we do not know it at the time, because it does not say Nuala anywhere in this feature of the book. Then when the first chapter begins, we are forced to temporarily abandon the story we were following as we are now introduced to Xavier Mclachlan. It is quite obvious that the reader will know that Xave and the mysterious girl in the prologue will meet somewhere in this narrative, and that girl is Nuala.

Join now!

Xavier is Moloney's priority choice. For example, if Xavier was not present to tell us what was going on, Nuala would have to tell us, but if Mclachlan was there, Moloney would get him to control the story and therefore informing the reader what was happening. This type of scenario is evident when Nuala is seeing the school councilor on page 31 – 34. “She was pleased with the tone she managed in her voice, innocent, yet demanding”. This is an example of where the third person point of view (limited) follows Nuala. We know this because Xavier is ...

This is a preview of the whole essay