Analyse af Anna Hopes novelle 'A gap of sky'

In the short story “A gap of sky”, written by Anna hope, we follow an adolescent girl and her journey through the streets of London. Ellie, the main protagonist, lives in and deals with an environment filled with both temptations and responsibilities. She struggles to take responsibility and most definitely feels the consequences of freedom, in today’s modern society.

Ellie has been sent to London to study by her parents’ and therefore lives a new life alone in a big city filled with temptations. Drugs and alcohol have gotten a grip on her, and therefore she has troubles with her studies. Her lifestyle includes partying, staying up late and certainly not taking school seriously. But on a morning after a hectic night, she wakes up to a realization. She has an essay due to the next morning and she hasn’t even begun. This leads to a journey through the streets of London in her pursuit of printer ink. A journey not only including the finding of the ink, but also a sudden awakening.

To summarize Ellie in a short sentence, I would describe her is as a young, rebellious woman, that who is having a hard time going through the process of evolving into adulthood. Ellie isn’t very special as it’s quite normal to be in her situation of being bound by her/your parents’ expectations and rebelling against them, for example by abusing drugs and alcohol. A dilemma with 2 sides includes: following her parents’ expectations or living her life in her own free will: “for what, really, was there to be reverent to? To whom? To what? To why? To God? To Mum? To Dad? Not them especially not them. It was their fault she was doing this bloody course in the first place.” (p. 2, l. 65) A quandary that she keeps going back and forth over, in her journey through the city.