Bernard MacLaverty - More Than Just The Disease

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Bernard MacLaverty – More Than Just The Disease

This short story is an excellent from the  Irish author Bernard MacLaverty. It is an examination of a young boy called Neil Fry who suffers from a skin condition called psoriasis and how the other characters react to, and interacts with him. My intentions for this essay are to examine how MacLaverty uses various settings to highlight different attitudes and explore the effects of such attitudes on the main character in this text.

The story revolves around Neil – a young boy, whose mother is a single parent, who goes to spend part of his summer holiday with his friend Michael and his family. Michael’s father is a doctor who has rented a Victorian terraced house in Scotland for the holiday.

 The holiday home is described as being full of collectables gathered from the owner’s travels to Africa and the Far East i.e., the cupboard of “black lacquer with a yellow inlay of exotic birds.” Such items may make the reader think that the owner is well-travelled and open-minded but the rest of the house is neat and orderly with a place for everything and everything in its place as typical of those times. This portrays an image of an inhibiting environment much more typical of Victorian attitudes and standards. Importantly, the house does not belong to Michael’s family but is used to represent an image of the family. The garden which is ‘steep and terraced “ is also described as being equally well tended to.

The house-owner, Mrs Wan, stays in a caravan at the bottom of the garden when the house is rented out. This setting is described in stark contrast to the main home. It is untidy and unkempt. This lady lives in an apparently slovenly and unrestrictive environment which seems to present an image of open-mindedness. Perhaps this lady has better things to do with her time than be preoccupied with trivia. The author maybe uses this contrast to highlight the various attitudes of the characters to Neil’s condition.  

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The main character is Neil who suffers from severe psoriasis on his chest. He is ashamed and embarrassed by this ailment which is generally typified by inflamed patches of skin called "lesions" covered by silvery white scales. His outbreaks are described as:

“a redness with an edge as irregular as a map”.

Due to this skin condition, he will not go swimming with the rest of Michael’s family. This causes them to ask questions because the weather is so warm: “I’m boiling already” states Michael. Neil does not confide in Michael the true reason why he will not ...

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