Analyse af Maria Behans novelle 'Red Truck'

Red Truck written by Maria Behan is about Fintan who has to through his old things out, because his old mother sold the house, and is moving to her sister’s house. Despite his displeasure, as he goes up in the attic, he begins to reminiscence his childhood. He finds a red truck and remembers how he got it at his 6th birthday and how it was the only thing he played with for a month until a day it got lost. Fintan was accusing his brothers of taking the red truck. Sometime later, he finds the truck at the edge of the field, and remembers how he forgot it as he ran from his brother. He went into despair, as he could not tell his family that he had found his beloved truck again. He cannot decide what to do with it, but he finally hides it away in the bottom of his wardrobe so nobody will ever know. Over the years, he forgets about it. Now he wonders what to do with the truck. He runs downstairs to his mother and indignantly tells her that he found it in one of his brother’s boxes.

Characterize Fintan

Fintan is soon to be fifty years old and lives as an artist. He has never settled down with a family, but he still finds young girlfriends, and they are only art students. As he gets older, his girlfriend’s gets more used and ugly. Sylvia his present girlfriend tricks him and drives him to his parents’ house, as he wants nothing to do with it, or it his mother, because his father died years ago. Sylvia has a flappy stomach and square jaw and a very firm and unyielding attitude. She seems to be a surrogate mother for Fintan as she takes care of him and makes decisions for him as if he is still a child, and not fifty years old. His art and sculptures did not sell well and he wastes his life away with no future or plans. He did not expect to get old, not necessarily die young, but did not see himself as adult, responsible and wise, as he is not the “type”. Others tells him to grow up and start act like his age and save up to retirement, but he does not take them serious, as he cannot see himself needing a pension.