ipl-logo

Opening Statement For The Story Of Tom Brennan

1404 Words6 Pages

Introduction
Opening statement.
Under-age drinking, drink driving, families in crisis and struggling with old and new friendships. All told through the eyes of a seventeen year old! What in ‘the story of Tom Brennan’ is not relevant to today’s young adults?
Thesis
Education Queensland should not be considering the removal of the novel ‘The Story of Tom Brannan’ as the story will certainly resonate with teenagers of today and there is no doubt they can identify with many of the social issue and themes raised in the story. Under-age drinking, for example, is a problem in Australian society today and car accidents involving young people feature regularly in the media.
Overview of three themes
Drink driving and under-age drinking is at the core …show more content…

The story deals with these issues in the first person through seventeen-year-old Tom Brennan’s eyes. Starting again in a new town and at a new school, how can Tom even begin to rebuild his life when his mother won’t get out of bed, his father is struggling to hold the family together, his sister is threatening to spill the family’s secret, and he can no longer play rugby with his beloved Mumbilli team? They remain a united family, even though they are faced with an extremely complex situation. Joe, Tom’s father, is pulled in many directions but seems to be able to keep calm at all times. He tries to keep Tom interested in rugby, and is very supportive of his wife Tess, who has become almost catatonic from the grief of Daniel being sent to gaol. Tom’s uncle Brendan is also very supportive to everyone in the family. Brendan helps Tom to recover emotionally, as he not only helps him becoming interested in training again, but treats him like a close friend. Because of Brendan’s help, Tom is able to become fit and see that his life is not over and that he has a future that includes playing rugby, romance and maybe even a holiday in Nepal. The story tries to show how if a Family can stick together if they are faced with tragedy or crisis, despite their different ways of dealing with the crisis, can work together to resolve the issues they

Show More
Related

  • Two Places John Quotes And Analysis

    416 Words  | 2 Pages

    After witnessing the crash, Tom was scared, he may have disliked Daniel at the time, but he was still his brother. Tom also cared about Fin, who because of Daniel, became a paraplegic. “I knew I had to stay with Fin, stay with the mess Daniel had made” (Burke 2005, p. 81). When Tom and his family move to Coghill, Tom tries to forget what happened, by making new friends and joining the school rugby team. However, Tom still felt he was being “sucked deeper into that long black tunnel” (Burke 2005, p. 51) of depression.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby Dialectical Journal

    752 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the preceding month, whilst Tom had come home each night to an empty wine bottle, or a half-filled glass of Whiskey, and looked in on his wife, every time asleep in their bed, the man had also drunk. Not to excess, but just enough to dull the pain of the frozen relationship with Lila, and their failing marriage. He'd have beer and scotch on his breath, and often scratches on his arms, scrapes on his face, or bruises on his knuckles, from where'd he'd taken exception to a comment made by a fellow officer in the Bar all frequented, or gotten himself into a fight because a member of the public had looked at him the wrong way when he'd stumbled to his car. Better them than Lila.

    Read More

  • A Brief Review Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette

    685 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Glass Castle by Jeannette Jeannette is a remarkable memoir that I recommend to teachers to consider it as a summer reading for the class of 2019. Jeannette Jeannette lives in Virginia and married to the writer John Taylor. She is also a regular contributor to MSNBC (American news cable and satellite television network). Jeannette’ book The Glass Castle won the 2005 elle readers prize and 2006 American Library Association Alex Award.

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative: Dr. Temperance Brennan

    360 Words  | 2 Pages

    I always knew that I wanted to work in the field of criminal sciences. However, I wasn’t sure I had the stomach to be a coroner. Someone recommended I watch the show Bones on FOX, and I was instantly hooked. Dr. Temperance Brennan is a forensic anthropologist at the Jeffersonian Institute, and I knew as soon as I finished the first episode that I wanted to be a forensic anthropologist. While Brennan is a fictional character, she is based on books written by Dr. Kathy Reichs.

    Read More

  • Determination In Ian Serraillier's Escape From Warsaw

    903 Words  | 4 Pages

    Determination is the key to success. In the book Escape from Warsaw by Ian Serraillier, Ruth, Bronia, and Edek are the children of Joseph and Margaret Balicki. They live in Poland before they get separated due to the Nazi invasion. The characters face a variety of problems. The author Serraillier used symbolism, dialogue, and description to support the theme.

    Read More

  • Angela's Ashes Essay

    905 Words  | 4 Pages

    His family has many problems including is fathers drinking party. There are many big things that happen in the story that I cannot describe in this short essay and I will describe in the actual research

    Read More

  • Summary Of At Seventeen By Sheila Morehead

    306 Words  | 2 Pages

    At Seventeen Short Response In the short story “At Seventeen” by Sheila Morehead, symbolism, conflict and characterisation has been used to construct the character “youth” as a complicated and independent surfer. Internal and external conflict has been utilised by Sheila to portray the youth as complicated and independent. Through out the story the youth has had to overcome many obstacles such as communicating and letting people into his own world. This shows the reader that he is very complicated and not a stereotypical teenage boy.

    Read More

  • A Comparison Of Family In Sonny's Blues And I Stand Here Ironing

    1125 Words  | 5 Pages

    Many families bicker with each other, and there is a lot of strife in one’s experience from being a part of a family. But it is less common to have a conflict that keeps members from commutating and leaves them bitter. “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin and “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Oslen are short stories that depict the difficulty a family can face trying to survive below the poverty line. The circumstances that causes their struggle varies and the manner in which they pursue resolution varies as well. The dynamics of family for both short stories are very similar in that both narrators have conflict with the character for which they are responsible and care for.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis: The Link Between Drinks

    835 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Link Between Drinks: Rhetorical Strategies in Tara Haelle’s “Alcohol can rewire the teenage brain.” It is no secret that teenagers experiment with alcohol, so why are the repercussions still kept hushed? Science writer and educator Tara Haelle works to reveal just a portion of the consequences that come from binge drinking during the teenage years in “Alcohol can rewire the teenage brain.” Haelle is attempting to convey the risk that adolescents are at when they participate in the harmful act of binge drinking. Haelle works to use documentary data and several types of appeals to persuade the readers against allowing or participating in binge drinking.

    Read More

  • Summary Of We Were Here By Matt De La Pena

    1494 Words  | 6 Pages

    He loses a good friend along the way, that alter him into making better decisions. He meets a couple of girls that affects him remarkably in choosing what he must do with his life. With the help of his grandparents, specifically his grandma, he is given reassurance that guide him home. Through

    Read More

  • Underage Drinking Informative Speech

    950 Words  | 4 Pages

    Today in the United States about 4,358 people under the age of 21 years old die each year from alcohol-related car crashes, homicides, suicides, alcohol poisoning, and other injuries such as falls, burns, and even drowning. More than 190,000 people under the age of 21 visited an emergency room for alcohol related reasons in 2008 alone. Alcohol related motor vehicle crashes kill someone every 31 minutes and non-fatally injure someone every two minutes. That’s a lot of people gone because they wanted to go out and party and not think about the consequences ahead. In this essay I’m gonna give you information to why Underage Drinking is very very bad for you.

    Read More

  • Im A Mad Dog Bite Myself For Sympathy Analysis

    465 Words  | 2 Pages

    “I’m a Mad Dog Biting Myself for Sympathy” by Louise Erdrich is a first-person point of view story, where the narrator talks about this incident of him stealing this stuffed toucan. Through the story, you can see many explains of him feeling the loss in his life, and him struggling with change. The narrator makes bad choice after bad choice; first, he steals a stuffed toucan from a store. Then proceeds to run with this large toucan, and steals a car, which he finds out that has a baby inside, then gets stuck in a ditch and leaves the car and baby behind, and then finally gets caught.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Direct Characterization In Mosquitoland

    595 Words  | 3 Pages

    The book Mosquitoland is about a troublesome young teenage girl who has a lot of family issues and was written by David Arnold. It was written in first person point of view by a sixteen year old named Mary Iris Malone or Mim Malone for short. The book starts off with Mary living with her father and new stepmother after her parent’s divorce. As a teenager, these major life changes do affect your behavior and emotions big time! Shortly after her parents split, Mim finds out that her mother is sick.

    Read More

  • In Jonathan Safran Foer's Here We Aren T, So Quickly

    1062 Words  | 5 Pages

    His son marries, and the narrator and his wife age further, and the transition into old age is complete with the death of the narrator’s father-in-law. Between these events we can see large shifts in attitudes and ideas, as well as health and well-being. These factors provide clear character evolution within the

    Read More

  • Imagery In Jamaica Kincaid's Short Story Girl

    464 Words  | 2 Pages

    Short stories are a piece of literature that holds a lesson in a small story, it has meaning behind it and with a large amount of imagery shows a picture of what the writer is trying to say. Short stories have been a very important piece of modern and past literature and always will, each story over the generations shows an evolution of not only english but also life in general. The story girl is an amazing short story by Jamaica Kincaid which has a deeper undertone of freedom while the mother explains how to be a lady. In the short story girl the mother explains how to be a lady, however with a deeper meaning of freedom behind it using a few key lines such as calling her daughter a slut.

    Read More

More about Opening Statement For The Story Of Tom Brennan

Open Document