Analyse af 'Golden Boy' af Arbigail Tarttelin

When we are born, the doctors will look at us and either say “it’s a boy” or “it’s a girl”. Though, in some cases, they are not able to determine whether or not, the baby is a boy or a girl, because sometimes they are not just one of the genders but both. When a person has biological characteristics of both male and female, they are called intersex. In the novel Golden Boy from 2013, Arbigail Tarttelin writes about Max, an intersex person, who, in the extract the essay is built on, is telling his girlfriend Sylvie about his secrets. But sharing a secret like this can be very scary, because not everyone will accept, who you really are.

For the reader to know what both Max and Sylvie are feeling and thinking, Tarttelin has chosen to write in first person narrator with a point of view from both characters. The effect of this, is that we know more than each of the characters, as they only know their own thoughts. The extract begins with a point of view from Max. He is a reliable character, because we have access to all his thoughts. On the outside he looks like a “normal” boy, and he is even popular. He is “Golden Boy” as the title says, however, Max’s feelings does not quite match up to his outer characterization. As said earlier Max is intersex, and he has both xx and xy chromosomes. He is feeling insecure about his secret and therefore not as tough on the inside, as he might appear on the outside. His worst fear is what people will think of him, if they find out. “She’s going to talk to people at school about me and everyone will know. Everyone Will know. Every day I’m there, everyone will know and look at me differently and talk about me.” (p. 87-87, ll. 12-1). Here we get a glimpse of his insecurity, though later he explains to Sylvie that he is not ashamed of being intersex. When the point of view is from Max, we share feelings with him, meaning that when he is insecure, we as readers are feeling insecure. We experience the difficulty of sharing the secret. However, when the point of view changes on page 89, our sympathy also changes, and now we learn, how it feels to receive these news. Because we are in the head of both characters, it is difficult to determine who, we feel more sympathy for. It also makes the reader consider their own thoughts, and reflect upon their own opinion on this subject, and these are the effects of the chosen narrative technique.