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Tinkers Book Analysis

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Tinkering With Time Epilepsy, it is difficult to deal with for both the epileptic and his family. Howard’s harrowing seizures in the novel Tinkers, written by Paul Harding, frighten those that witness its inconsistency. George witnesses this in his father Howard and is frightened, himself. At first, their relationship is normal but because of Howard’s seizures the relationship collapses and George runs away in his teenaged years. Flashbacks of both George and his father Howard are entries into their lives. Harding helps the readers understand the themes of life, death and relationship between the Crosby men and reaches the readers by capturing their attention with examples for each. To represent the difficult, then later, satisfying life of …show more content…

The readers are able to take a glimpse into his childhood and adulthood which contrast greatly. For instance, George’s childhood is difficult in ways that can relate to people in the real world. He is brought up in a household where his mother Kathleen’s “humourless regime mask[s her] bitterness far deeper than any of her children and husband imagine.” (92) Kathleen is still “shocked” (92) that she is a wife and a mother so she buries her feelings under “layer upon layer of domestic strictness” (92) hiding her feelings from her children thereafter making them believe that her humourless feelings are just a part of her personality. Because of Kathleen’s views towards the topic of family are bitter, she believes that her epileptic husband should be sent away to an asylum out of pure bitterness rather than care of his well-being. George’s parents do not see eye to eye on this matter. Howard “could not have let himself be witness to the simultaneity of his wife passing him a place of chicken or a basket of hot bread as she worked out her plans to have him taken away.” (128) The feeling of secretly not being wanted by his wife is too hard for him to bare which causes him to abandon his family. Because George witnesses the relationship between his parents crumble and that is when he decides to live a life away from it all, where he raises a family of his own in ways opposite of his own …show more content…

Harding brings three important themes to his novel Tinkers that brings the reader to fully understand the emotion of the lives of his characters. The theme of life being the first. Harding demonstrates that life has its ups and downs but will eventually come to a pause at a more satisfying point where the hardships of life will come to pass. George partakes in this satisfaction by the end of his life when surrounded by those he loves and those that love him back. The moment at which the hardships come to pass, in the novel, is at a point of death. The death theme in the novel entices the readers in two forms of which death can be present. The first being that only the animate can die and memories with it and the other the complete opposite in which the inanimate can also posses the ability to ‘die’. As life and death goes, the fine line between them is the relationship that develops in between the two. Harding demonstrates that the relationship theme can be distinguished in forms that are unnatural but nonetheless still demonstrate relationship. At one point, the father-son relationship in the novel is expressed through fear but is also not to be expressed at all when referring to affection. Harding provides engrossing themes to progress the novel in its fragmented world but uses clear examples to help clear up the conflicting views

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