Change In The Story Of Tom Brennan

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Into the world explores the aspects of growing up, transitions into new phases of an individual’s life and a broader world. Through personal experiences, people are able to learn, grow or change as an individual. This is shown in the novel ‘The Story of Tom Brennan’ by J.C Burke and the film ‘Finding Forrester’ by Gus Van Sant, as both texts explore how individuals grow when they are taken out of their comfort zone and undertake new experiences. Both texts show how the characters adapt to the transitions of change through various themes such as fear, acceptance and self-discovery. The techniques used within these texts are a demonstration of the characters moving ‘into the world’. When people embark on new experiences, the beginning of their journey is always the most complex as many have a tendency to succumb to fear. In the novel, ‘The Story of Tom Brennan’, Tom, the protagonist, has an issue with coming to terms with the forced move that his family has suddenly made; from his hometown…show more content…
His way of coping is to withdraw himself from everyone and everything and Burke personifies this; “even in the dark I could see the grime on the walls… feel it pasted and crawling on my skin.” This quote is indicative of how Tom is handling his situation by way of him locking himself in his room which he calls a ‘cave’, as he dwells in his past and present instead of moving forward. Burke exaggerates this as if it was though the grime on Tom’s wall was ‘pasted and crawling’ on his skin which allows the readers to see that Tom is trapped in his ‘cave’, and the grime is an obstacle that prevents him from leaving his room as if the grime is consuming him. Similarly, in the film “Finding Forrester”, one of the main characters, William Forrester, had had a traumatising

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