The Cement Garden | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 2 pages of analysis & critique of The Cement Garden.

The Cement Garden | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 2 pages of analysis & critique of The Cement Garden.
This section contains 569 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Anne Tyler

["The Cement Garden"] is really a kind of extended dream, although there's nothing dreamy about the precision and clarity of the writing. Its narrator, Jack, is a 15-year-old English boy so sunk in self-loathing that there are long stretches when he can't even be bothered to bathe or brush his teeth. Jack's father is a crabbed, oppressive man …; his mother is not much more than a shadow, and their neighborhood is a wasteland of abandoned prefabs. Life here seems smothered, flattened. For Jack, his two sisters and his little brother, the only pleasures are those that erupt beneath a rigid surface: some rather joyless sexual games and a few stolen moments of willful disobedience.

"The Cement Garden" describes the process that steadily isolates these four children, until they're so absolutely alone and so at odds with the rest of the world that there is no way of returning...

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This section contains 569 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Anne Tyler
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Critical Essay by Anne Tyler from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.