Coventry

« Rebuilding Coventry is a 1988 novel by bestselling British author Sue Townsend, famous for her Adrian Mole series.

In this novel, the narrator, Coventry, a middle-class housewife from York, kills her next door neighbor by accident and overwhelmed by panic, she runs to the station to catch the first train to London, where she believes she will be able to hide from police enquiries.

The scene takes place on the first night she spends in the street, without any money or friends to turn to. We'll see in this extract how the sudden change in the narrator's situation acts as a revelator of her personality and triggers reactions she didn't expect. I.

Changes within the narrator A.

An unusual situation 1.

She's alone, she's poor, she's dirty "sooty face and hands" 2.

She's hungry as never before: she experiences the mental as well as the physical threats caused to an individual by hunger.

She turns into an animal. Transition: This unusual situation triggers a feeling of panic B.Panic prompts the narrator to behave in an unusual way to get food 1.

The legal strategies: begging, asking for credit, trying her luck with the shopkeeper "I beg you" must be unusual for her. 2.

The animal instinct: hunting, choosing the target, snatching, peeling a banana which isn't hers. . »