wenns wem hilft, habs noch nicht gelesen, ist so viel...:
Cal's feelings of guilt :
In the whole book Cal is presented as an honest person but there are always illegal things he does. The first illegal action is that he and Crilly beat up a younger boy in school. As to be seen on page 15 in line 15 Cal is nervous and normally doesn't really want to do it but does it because of his "friend" Crilly. Afterwards he has a guilty conscience because it was two against one younger boy. Cal is shown as a person who is really decent but because of his friends he is sometimes involved in crimes. Another example is that Skeffington and Crilly want Cal to be the driver for a crime. Cal says he wants out (page 18, line 5) because of his guilty conscience concerning the cruel thing he did with Crilly: They killed Robert Morton. Cal sees Marcella Morton, his widow, everyday because she works in the library. Cal can't stand it because she reminds him of the event all the time. But Skeffington and Crilly persuade him so that he drives a last time and then wants out.
The reader is confronted with Cal's guilty conscience almost all the time because everywhere Cal goes and everything he does reminds him of the death of Robert Morton and makes him feel guilty. On page 31 in line 2 Cal is in the church and prays. After a while his prayers only consists of " telling him how vile he was" . It seems that Cal wants to undo everything and that he knows that he isn't able to do that. This makes him mad. Another example of this is to be found on page 33, line 11: "But the thing he had done was now a background to his life, permanently there, like the hiss that echoed from the event which began the Universe". Cal wants to shake off his conscience and all the things he did, but he can't. So he tells Crilly another time that he wants out but again Crilly talks him into participating so that Cal is the driver as before. He drives Crilly to Magherafelt where Crilly lifts a shop. Cal doesn't like the whole thing and is really nervous because he is afraid that people get hurt or even get killed (page 53, line 15: " Jesus, I thought you'd killed them."). Almost a year after the death of Robert Morton Cal remembers every minute of that evening. It seems to hurt him because thinking back of the crime makes it real and brings it back to his mind. Now that he has met Marcella and fell in love with her he thinks about telling her the truth. But as to be seen on page 79 in line 26 ( "..., he knew that, because of what he had done, they could never come together." ) he is afraid that Marcella could hate him. Marcella and Cal spend some time together but although Cal feels guilty he doesn't say a word about what he did.
One day they pick blackberries together and talk about bad things they did in the past. Marcella tells him about a boy she should have had a date with but whom she stood up. Then she asks Cal whether he has ever done anything really bad ( page 105, line 17) but Cal does't tell her about it. He only mentions that he beat up a younger boy. It seems that Cal tries to start a new life for Marcella because when meeting Crilly in the library, Cal tells him that he wants out and although Crilly tries to persuade him, Cal says that he is not interested any more (page 128, line 4) and that he " feels bad about what he was doing" and that "it was against his conscience" (page 130, line 32). Cal goes back to Marcella and wants to tell her everything (page 134, line 7 to line 10) but he doesn't. They make love and Cal feels guilty again as Marcella falls asleep beside him (page 135, line 20). He feels worse because she shows trust although she doesn't know what Cal has done to her husband. Cal thinks of writing Marcella to explain her everything but he hasn't got the chance to do that because on Christmas Eve he is arrested by the police. Cal's guilty conscience wasn't able to win against him in spite of the fact that it seemed to make him made.
Marcella's relationship to her husband and her attitude towards Cal:
In my opinion Marcella hadn't a good relationship to her husband Robert, because the last years of his life there didn't really exist a special and typical deep love to him. Perhaps she lost the confidence in her husband, because of what he had mentally done to her. He made her feel that he didn't really love her and that he wasn't interested in her feelings and her body anymore (p.124). She thought that he had only sex "with some creatures of his imagination", because he didn't make her realize it was her. In her opinion a marriage must be a mixture of friendship and desire, but the friendship had gone out of their relationship a long time ago and Robert's lust was only for someone inside his head. Shortly before his death he started to tell lies, to drink, to have two or three affairs and spent the money wherever he wanted to. I think that the result of all these things is to lose your love to a person who treats you so badly. And that's the way Marcella did, she used the marriage to keep the comfort of being held, but she distanced herself from Robert (p.124). In my opinion, all these negative experiences had to come to her mind at the end of his life, when she was frustrated and felt inferior, because at the beginning of their relationship they started a love affair on a difficult foundation. Although she was a Catholic woman and Robert a Protestant man, they decided to start alife together, not to think about the devastating results which might follow. But after all she can't forgive him his bad behaviour and her inferior position in this marriage. In my opinion all these experiences of her past are positive for Cal to have a future with her, because Cal is the opposite to Robert. He's a young man, who makes her feel younger when they are having fun together (p.101). So they are able to build up a good and deep relationship, which seemed not to be able to exist, because she is a widow with main problems and he is a boy nearly without (p.101). In that way she tries to do the sensible thing for both of them, because nobody should get hurt and regret it later on. I think that in her opinion their friendship shouldn't be destroyed by a short love affair. This signals the intensity of their relationship and the feelings which shouldn't stop (p.117). But it also symbolizes that she still feels guilty about Robert and perhaps about their destroyed marriage. But all in all Cal is areal friend to her and she feels awful about hurting him. In my opinion in many aspects of their short love affair she's superior and Cal seems to depend on her mentally (p.124; l.9:" Don't love like that again. It is not you!" "Sorry", he said.). Each time when he tries to receive an answer to the question whether she loves him or not, she just says that she needs more time. Perhaps this symbolizes that there is always a distance left between Marcella and Cal. Finally, I would say that they spend a nice time together and that she loves him in some ways, but it's always a love with no future and equality.
Something about Cal's character:
When you start reading this story you get the impression that Cal is a bit introverted. One reason for this assumption could be that Cal doesn't speak much at the beginning of the story.
A bit later we learn that Cal's mother died when he was 8 years old. You realize that he misses his mother. One night he dreams of her. The dream deals with him being afraid and her reassuring him. A situation like that shows us how important a loving mother is, especially when you are depressed. It doesn't matter how old you are. After having lost his mother Cal tries to find a kind of family-substitute. To this "family" his friends Crilly and Skeffington belong, perhaps the IRA, too. They often spend time together, because of being unemployed Cal has enough time. When they meet at Crilly's house, Crilly's mother often comes in to bring tea or something else. Then Crilly and Skeffington seem to be annoyed but Cal is always nice to her and friendly. He likes to be near women. Contacts with women are pleasant for him.
Later in the story he sees Marcella for the first time. He admires her and falls in love (cf. Relationship Cal - Marcella). She is Cal's first love and the only person who is able to bridge the distance between Cal and women. Cal finds a mother and later a girlfriend in Marcella who is a widow and has a little daughter. When they become lovers at the end of the story, Cal becomes a father figure for the child. The whole story and the persons' feelings deal with gaining and losing. We also learn that the family, surroundings and the political atmosphere influence a character.
Their attitudes:
The relationship between Cal and Shamie is not based on political attitudes, although they both have an opinion about the situation in their country, but therefore their behaviour depends on all the struggles they have to live through. Cal grew up in a world of civil war and crimes.
He experiences the system of unfairness all the time, and so he was raised to blame the Protestants to be guilty of the political conflicts. That's why he doesn't fight back when he gets involved in illegal affairs, but fights for Catholic rights. Shamie, his father, is an old stubborn man whose principles are so strong that it seems to be impossible that he changes his mind, he isn't interested in friendships with Protestants at all. He swears at them, but is also famous and knows some Protestants, who like him, because in the text they say that he is a good man. Basic events Cal is very important for some illegal jobs, because he can drive a car. He and his father live in a Protestant area, so they are constantly in a state of fear and danger. But the pressure gets even worse, when Cal finds a note one day that says that they should move out of their home, otherwise they will be attacked. Cal and Shamie live totally apart from each other, although or perhaps that's the reason for it they live together in a small flat. Cal even fixed a bolt and Shamie did not like it. They don't talk much to each other, so there is always a kind of tension between them, which is comparable to the story Father and Son by MacLaverty. (Before the son says something to his father he thinks about it if it fits or if he shouldn't mention that at all). It becomes obvious when the cottage has been burned down and Shamie asks Cal several times with a voice full of shock and worries if he is in trouble and wonders if Cal tells him everything. There is also a touch of embarrassment in the atmosphere at the beginning. Shamie got him a job at first at the same place where he works - in the abattoir. Later Cal had to give it up, he couldn't stand the smell and got sick all the time. Certainly, Shamie became disappointed and embarrassed, because after Cal Crilly got the job. (That's how the story started). And Crilly isn't a good friend of them at all. Already in school Crilly was like a boss and Cal had difficulties to be on his side. Now he is extremely involved in crimes - above all he convinces Cal to do illegal things and to help him with doing attacks which are ordered by Skeffington - a Catholic terrorist group's boss). Their relationship Every day when Shamie comes home from work, Cal mostly prepared dinner so they eat together. After his tiring working-day the father wants to relax, they watch the news on TV together or sometimes discuss about politics. At the beginning of the story Shamie becomes angry, because for him it seems that they separate from each other more and more. After the fire-attack Cal moves out to take distance of daily conflicts, starts working on a farm and because he fell in love with the widow who is the wife of the man whom Cal assisted in killing he can't get rid of his guilty conscience. It seems like Cal isolated himself very much and can't even talk to his father correctly. As time goes by Shamie becomes mentally ill. Resulting from his loneliness he sits in a chair in the flat of his cousin and later he has to be taken into a mental hospital. by Hucky 7th
Shamie - a decent character between abattoir and the gutter :
Shamie Mc Cluskey is fighting to live his life. For me his story is a tragedy. He is known as a good man (page 5, ll.19 ) but he is a Catholic. The way he lives seems to keep him alive avoiding not to get crazy about his life. His first son died in a car crash and he hadn't enough money for attending the funeral (page 27, ll.8 ). But that is not enough, his wife died, too, and just because of being a Catholic the UVF wants to burn down his home (page 21, ll.22). Any other man would get his stuff together and move house, not Shamie, he stays( page 5, line 8 ): "No Loyalist bastard is going to force me out of my home. They can kill me first."
In this passage he seems to be very strong but the troubles just broke him. On page 10 for example the reader gets to know that in some way Shamie accepted the civil war because he tells Cal to ignore the "Yahoos" outside (ll. 4 ). I think this is a good example of the schizophrenia of Shamie. On the one hand he can't understand it and fights for his honor for a little fairness in his life. He said that it caused him a lot of embarrassment that Cal quit his job at the abattoir and therefore Crilly got it (page 13 ll.11). But on the other hand he seems to be desinterested and it seems that he has already given up the fight. The case which broke him was the fire in his house (page 65). Shamie believed that he would lose his second son, too, and he would be alone.This experience was too much for him, he started to cry, maybe he cried for the first time in his life on the street. After this occasion he can't go on, he isn't able work on, that's why he spends so much time at his cousin's home just sitting in an armchair and thinking about his life. During this time he gives his fight up, caused by the fact that Cal, his last son, left him. Although Cal didn't die, it is really hard for Shamie, because he left without giving an address to him. From my point of view Shamie is the only one who tries to live an honest life and to fight toughly through. For me he is the character with whom the author shows the violence and the unfairness of war. This war makes even a good man break down. Shamie's story shows that nobody with good principles can survive. On page 12 Shamie says "Waste not, want not" (line 29). The truth is that the war makes you to waste as much as you can because it will take the things away you don't waste. If you want to have something for the future, a house, a car, the war will take it all, sometimes even your life. Shamie still belives in goodness after all. That's why he breaks down and ends up in Gransha (page 126 line 22).
Thx Rob für die Hilfestellung aber hatte diese Sachen auch schon gefunden.
Und seita alle Fitt für den morgigen Tag? ich muss für mich sagen habe noch immer nicht das Buch gelesen und mache es nun auch nicht mehr. werde nur die zusammenfassung lesen und so den restlichen kack angucken. Kann also nurnoch schiefgehn morgen ________________________________________________________________________
habe heute das buch komplett (auf deutsch) durchgelesen und mache mich heute nacht an die interpretationen, vielleicht bekomme ich ja noch ein, zwei stunden schlaf, bis morgen denne...
Ja Abreit ist nun hinter uns und ich muss sagen ich kann mein Gefühl Null einschätzen. Ich hoffe natürlich das beste aber da die rechtschreibung wohl bei 0 Punkten liegt rechne ich nicht mit sehr gutem -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Irgendwer hatte in Kunst nachgefragt, hier ist die Zusammenfassung.
Summary ,,CAL" Anna-Maria Liebenwein, 8D
CHAPTER 1 (p.7-34) This story tells us about Cal and his father Shamie, who are living as the only Catholics in a protestant area in Northern Ireland. Cal is a young man, who is unemployed and searching for a job, after he had quit his work at the abattoir, where he worked together with his father. One day Cal visits the library to get some new tapes, and when he enters he sees an attractive woman standing behind the counter. She seems very familiar to him and he finds out that her name?Œs `Marcella?Œ, which upsets him a lot, and he gets very nervous thinking about her and he says `I need to make it all up to her?Œ. The day after Cal visits the library again, just to get a glance at Marcella, he gets in a little fight with his Dad and he thinks a lot about this guy `Crilly?Œ, who he went to school with, who is in the same gang as Cal and who now has his job at the abattoir. Cal wants to tell Crilly that he wants to quit the gang, because he can?Œt take it anymore. The gang meets up at a member?Œs house to have some teat and talk about their activities and they tell Cal that they need him as a driver. The next day Cal waits in front of the library for Marcella, and when she leaves the library she looses a package of her groceries- Cal picks it up and carries it for her to her car and so he makes contact to her again. Being back again at his house he finds a sheet of paper in his doorway, which says that he and his father should leave the house or the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Federation) would burn it down. Cal wakes his father, he shows him the threat and they prepare everything to be ready if the house starts burning. (They get out a gun, which they got from Crilly, and fill the bath tub with water.) This night Cal thinks a lot about Marcella, and about the first threat they got from UVF and about Crilly again. He can?Œt sleep, so Cal gets up to get a cup of tea together wit his Dad and they talk about important things and the reader gets to know that Cal?Œs mother died when he was eight years old and that his only brother was killed in an car-accident years before.
CHAPTER 2 (p.35-57) Sundays Cal normally goes to church in his area, but this certain Sunday he sleeps in and so he has to go to a neighbouring church. There he sees Marcella and her little child again and at the end of the service he walks very close behind her, what he enjoys a lot. Cal drives to Clones, to the place he calls `real Ireland?Œ, to watch a football game and there he meets Skeffington, another gang-member. The following week Cal stalked Marcella nearly every second day, he?Œs playing guitar, smoking and cooking for his dad. Every day his father tells him to call Crilly, but Cal refuses with a terrible feeling in his stomach. One day his Dad returns from work and tells Cal, that he?Œs bought some trees and that Cal should help him cutting them into blocks and sell them to get some extra-money. Cal does his job and he decides to sell the blocks to the farm where Marcella lives- (that?Œs a big deal, because he?Œs a Catholic and the farm where Marcella lives is known as to be protestant) Cal sells all of the blocks to an old lady living at this farm and she asks him to work the next day too, to make the blocks smaller and to collect his money. On his way home Cal gets beaten up by some protestants, but he?Œs able to flee before they hurt him really badly. Cal suggests his Dad to give in and leave the protestant area, but his Dad refuses and suggests Cal to go away for two or more weeks. The next day Cal, after taking a long relaxing bath, finishes his work, and he accidentally sees that the husband of this old lady is very sick. The day he works at the farm he meets Marcella and an old protestant friend -Cyril, who works at the farm. The lady asks Cal to help them for little money to lift potatoes at their fields. Cal agrees, because it is better than doing nothing and so he goes to lift up potatoes with a lot of other people for three days. After those three days the old lady asks Cal to work permanently at the farm and Cal agrees again.
CHAPTER 3 (p.57-89) Cal?Œs Dad is very happy that his son finally got a job, but then he tells him that Cal has to go and visit Crilly instantly. They are having a cup of tea while watching the news, Cal takes a bath and then he walks down to Crilly?Œs home. Crilly tells Cal that de has to give him a ride to the other side of town to get a gun and so they start at nine o clock pm to do their thing. Crilly and Cal get a gun, they drive to a store and within 2 or three minutes Crilly robs it and gets a bag full of money. He offers Cal some for his effort, but Cal refuses to take it and so Crilly just throws it into Cal?Œs lap. Instead of going to a pub they stop off at Skeffington?Œs house, get a drink there and get to know Skeffingtons Dad, who is a very old and reserved man. They count 722 pounds and discuss who they should give the money to, who needs it the most. Cal is still sure that he wants to quit the gang because people get hurt, although the gang `helps?Œ other Catholic families with their robberies. Crilly and Skeffington try to persuade Cal with arguments like `Not being part of the solution is being part of the problem.?Œ etc. but Cal still sees no point in it. He detests killing people for any reason! Cal starts working at the farm and he likes it better than the work at the abattoir, although he doesn?Œt know a lot about farm-work. Cal?Œs a little disappointed because he doesn?Œt get to see Marcella. To overcome this situation he goes to her church the following Sunday, but unfortunately she isn?Œt there. Cal doesn?Œt give up and goes to the library one night and there he sees Marcella again and she is able to convince him to take out a book this time and not, as usual, tapes. When Cal returns his house is burning and his father is sitting in front of it crying. Shamie is very afraid that the police will find the gun and so Cal decides to search the house. Luckily he finds the gun and brings it to his father. Cal and Shamie aren?Œt insured and so they have nothing left, but they hope that the government will compensate them for being attacked by protestants. Cal decides this night to disappear and stay in an old cottage near the farm. He doesn?Œt tell his father where he?Œll go, he just wants to be away. When he spends the first night in the cottage he thinks about that evening, when Crilly, the gang and he killed a police-man, who turned out to be Marcellas husband: After getting an alibi at a dance, they stole a car and Cal drove them to the Morton farmhouse. Crilly walked up to the door, rang the bell and shot Mr. Morton when he was opening the door. Cal heard Mr. Morton saying the name of his wife `Mar-cell-a?Œ. After a few miles they set the stolen car on fire and Cal returned to the dance with shaking hands and white as chalk and tried to be seen for his alibi.
CHAPTER 4 (p.90-121) Cal continues to live in the small cottage for a fortnight, without being able to take a bath, change his clothes or brush his teeth with toothpaste. He feels very dirty and he?Œs worried about his looks, because he starts to grow a black beard, and his teeth seem to feel yellow. (Although he is brushing them with a mixture of ashes and salt, like his mother taught him). One night he sees a light in the Morton?Œs farmhouse, and he realises that Marcella is going to take a bath. He carefully creeps to the window and watches Marcella preparing for the bath. He gets to see a part of her naked body, and he feels very guilty that he is watching her without her permission, and therefore he walks back to the cottage. Cal lights a match to smoke a cigarette. All of a sudden somebody kicks the door open and it?Œs terrible bright in the cottage. There is screaming and yelling and some men of the police yell at Cal and tell him that the Morton?Œs called the police, because they saw the light in the cottage. Cal tries to explain his situation to them and finally they walk him to the Morton?Œs, where Marcella and her mother-in-law give an `ok?Œ to the police and after signing some papers they leave. Cal explains everything to the Morton?Œs, they tell him about their fear since Mr. Morton was killed, but in the end Marcella convinces her mother-in-law that Cal is allowed to live in the cottage. The next day he gets some old furniture from the farm and Marcella, her daughter Lucy and Cal are busy moving things around and they talk about everything and nothing. Cal gets second-hand clothes from Marcellas dead husband, she washes his clothes and at night he sits useless in his new home. Cal feels very safe from the outside world and thinks about the times, when his Mom was still alive until he falls asleep into a night filled with nightmares. The other night Marcella admits to Cal how much she dislikes seeing Mr. Morton suffering, and how she needs to get out of the farm and how it isn?Œt easy to live with Mrs. Morton and her Parkinson disease. Sunday he goes to church with Marcella and one day he gets a lift to town to see his Dad from Dunlop and on their way Dunlop explains his idea of this `Ireland-war?Œ to Cal. Cal finds his Dad as a broken man, who is apathetic sitting in his chair crying and Cal tells Shamie to see a Doctor instantly. Shamie agrees and tells Cal that Skeffington came one day to ask for him and that Crilly asks Shamie nearly every day if he knows where his son is. Cal?Œs worried about his Dad and about those guys asking for him and again Cal doesn?Œt tell his Dad where he lives. Marcella gives Cal a lift home and on their way they stop to get a drink in a bar and they get more familiar to each other. Saturday they take a walk to collect blackberries, nearly like a small family, Lucy holding hands between her Mom and Cal. Cal feels like confessing his terrible sin to her, but in fear of loosing her sympathy, he remains silent with a bad feeling in his stomach. When they return to the farm all of a sudden they hear an explosion and fall down to the earth. Marcella and Lucy run home and Cal goes to see what happened, and he finds a half of a cow, which stepped on a mine, lying in the grass.
CHAPTER 5 (p. 122-153) For the next six weeks Cal hardly sees Marcella, because the weather isn?Œt too good and so he can?Œt find an excuse for spending time with her, except on Halloween when they watch the fireworks in the sky. The only time he sees Marcella is on Sundays, when they drive together to church. One week everybody, except Marcella, leaves for being with Mr. Morton in Belfast for an operation. During the afternoon, when Cal is still alone, he wanders through the farm and up to Marcellas room and he feels his huge love, his obsession, for her and his big sin within him, which makes it impossible to be together with her. Searching through her stuff he finds an old diary, from Marcellas schooldays and he reads a few pages, understanding nothing. The diary-entries ended more than a year ago, so he can?Œt find anything about him, but he finds negative entries about Robert, Marcellas dead husband. When Marcella comes home he attempts to leave the farm, but she invites him to come over for an Italian dinner tonight. After having a romantic dinner, drinking some vine and other alcoholic beverages they sit in front of the fireplace and Marcella tells Cal again, how much she hates living with Roberts family and how terrible her marriage to Robert was. Encouraged by the ambience and the alcohol Cal kisses Marcella and she replies his kisses until she tells him to go home, for the better of them two. Cal?Œs disappointed and he doesn?Œt see Marcella a lot until, one night, she knocks on his door and asks him for forgiveness for what happened the other night. She brings him some punch and after kissing he again, she takes off her clothes and jumps into his bed. Cal looses his virginity that night and back in the farm they have sex again, and Cal tells Marcella that he really loves her. The next day he drives to town to do some Christmas-shopping and as he drops by his fathers cousin to visit his Dad, the man tells him that his father was brought to an insane-asylum to Gransha. To pass some time Cal goes to the library and there he accidentally meets Crilly who shows him a time-bomb enclosed in a book. Cal?Œs terrified, because the library is Marcellas only shelter. Crilly tells Cal that Skeffington?Œs Dad was knocked down by a car and that Crilly and Skeffington avenged the driver by crushing both of his knees. Then they walk to Skeffington and as soon as Cal tells them that it was stupid of them to do that, because the police could find out who hurt the driver, they hear the noise of a Land Rover- the polices car. All three of them run outside the house and try to flee, but only Cal is successful and the other two are caught by the police. Cal telephones the police anonymously and tells them about the bomb in the library and then walks as casually as he can back to the farm. Marcella welcomes him, he gives her the Christmas-presents for herself and her little girl and they make love. Marcella tells Cal her worries that Robert?Œs family is coming home the next day and that her life will be the same dull style again. Cal just thinks about Crilly and Skeffington, if they will tell the police his name. After having dinner they make love again, Cal walks home to his cottage and the next morning the police arrests him without having told Marcella his big secret.
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