In the story of Tom Brennan by J.C. Burke, the protagonist Tom experiences a traumatic catastrophe of his brother’s drink driving incident leaving his brother Daniel in jail, two dead and one paralysed which left Tom’s beliefs of his family shattered. Tom’s response to such a chaotic event in their social position is one of self-hatred, this is portrayed through the extended metaphor of darkness, “In the dark I could see the grime… I could feel it pasted crawling on my skin,” emphasising the despair and melancholy which fills Tom’s heart, and the sense of paralysis. The author demonstrates Tom’s progress of transition maturity throughout the physical motif of running, as Uncle Brendan quotes “Start running tomorrow, i’ve never seen you so..