Essay on Morris Luries Pride and Joy - 1365 Words

Write about how one character from Morris Lurie’s Pride and Joy is presented and how this character develops key concerns in the story. Billy in Morris Lurie’s ‘Pride and Joy’ is initially presented as a 16 year old boy who literally lives his life in the footsteps of his abusive, irresponsible, bohemian father, Ned Mathews. By the end of the story Billy’s character has undergone a transformation to become his own person; he has broken away from his father. This short story is told in first person narrative by an anonymous narrator. This narrator is a tourist on an island in the â€Å"Great Barrier Reef† who tells his account of his encounter with millionaire Ned Mathews and his son, Billy. Through his characterization of Billy,†¦show more content†¦By exploring Billy’s inappropriate choice of lifestyle in great detail, Lurie expresses his theme, which is to take care when choosing your lifestyle. Billy’s desire to please his father and to control is reiterated by the motif of alcohol. Billy is too young to be drinking as much alcohol as he does, yet he does and he does it to please his father and to control by demonstrating that he is able to drink as much as his father. This is shown in the quotation, â€Å"His son [Billy] matched him drink for drink.† Lurie’s use of the narrator’s voice is very significant here because the narrator is presented to readers as very moral and sensible, so when the narrator talks about a boy drinking as much as a man we worry. This concern is further addressed by the narrative voice in the line, â€Å"I watched the boy. How long could he last? I thought. How long could he keep it up?† and also when he thinks, â€Å"Don’t tell me Billy is outdrinking him. I thought. His own son. His own pride and joy.† The pace is signi ficantly sped up during these two quotations by the shorter more choppy sentences. This serves two purposes, first it makes the passage stand out from the rest of the paragraph and second it permits the narrator to clearly state his point. The repetition of â€Å"I though† in both quotations creates an effective link of the two quotations. It is therefore reasonable to assume