Dear Mr Cairney

450 Words2 Pages
‘Dear Mr Cairney’ by Graham Lay. Describe a character that interested you and explain why this character interested you. Describe Mr Cairney as to how they interested me throughout the text explaining how he did using supportive evidence. In the short story ‘Dear Mr Cairney’ by Graham Lay, a character that interested me was Mr Cairney. Throughout my essay I will be explaining how Mr Cairney abuses the power that he has and how he demonstrates it to us. In the opening of the short story ‘Dear Mr Cairney’ what interested me most was the fact that he was a bully. In the text the past pupil mentions that he could tell Mr Cairney did not like him. This is shown when Cairney tells him to stand up in front of the class for quarter of an hour although there were others talking. “but the first morning you came it was me you told to stand up even though there were several of us talking.” This made me think about how little Mr Cairney knew his past pupil upon arrival and how he addresses him, using his last name as a form of bullying. Mr Cairney further interests me in the story when he becomes increasingly cruel and controlling. This was shown through multiple actions. An act of cruelty was shown when Mr Cairney tells his past pupil to stay after school for finishing his class work early. “What are you doing getting up before you’ve finished? Stay behind after school!” Mr Cairney begins being cruel by striking his right hand with his strip repeatedly. To expose his full cruelty, Cairney made the past pupil pick up muck outside with the same beaten hand. Lay helps me understand that Cairney’s power to be cruel was only used when exploiting the weak. At no stage did he use his power to go against someone much stronger than himself throughout the text. Having the power to keep his pupil after school hours and give him the strap was where his power lead to cruelty. This
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