The Go Between

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Ali Smith – ”The Go-Between” The Go-Between is a short story, written by Ali Smith in 2009. This short story was written for a collection of short stories written to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the United Nations’ adoption of the universal Declaration Of Human rights. Ali Smith has found her inspiration to the short story in Article 13, The Right To Freedom Of Movement, which is mentioned as information, at last in the story. This story takes place in Morocco, in North Africa where our narrator and main character lives. The main character in this story is a 33-year-old man, whose name, never get mentioned, but he describes himself with characteristics like: “I’m a small, slight man. I’m not a big man. I’m lean and slight.” (p. 4, l. 120). Beside of that, is he a former microbiologist and worked at a University, which shows, that he actually is a smart man with an education behind. Through the story, we get to learn more about our main character. Some of his ear, as well as his finger, are missing – he lost both of the things, while trying to cross the Spanish border. This tells a lot about our main character. The fact that he is willing to go so far, to get to Europe, shows that he is both stubborn and targeted. Despite the fact, that he has lost his finger, and some of his ear, does it seem like, that he is not afraid of joking about the loss: “I lost the top part of my ear on the fence. The top part of my ear is in Europe”(p. 1, l. 3-4). This makes him seem quite cheerful, but even though he is joking about it, is he quite scared of losing more body parts, which is shown in these nightmares he gets, when he go to sleep. Just like the nightmares, does it also seem like, that he is embarrassed about his loss of his finger: “I keep my hand folded so no one sees the loss in it.” Perhaps he is afraid, that people can tell he is a refugee and only see him
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