Analyse af Anna Hopes novelle 'Gap of sky'

Finding your identity can be difficult. You can find yourself lost in the world without a true purpose. You feel alone in the sea of people and cannot help but think: who am I and what should I do? But then something frightens you: death is terribly scary. Especially if you have wasted your life on drugs and alcohol; surrounding yourself with people, who does not really know you or care for you. But it is hard to ameliorate yourself, but with a little help from a gap of sky; maybe with a little hope: Everything is possible. This is the situation for the young girl, Ellie, in Anna Hope’s short story “Gap of sky” (2008). Ellie has had a night out and is in no shape to write an important assignment for the next morning. She figures she has to stay up all night to write it and she realizes that she has run out of ink for the printer. This sets her off on a quest through London city finding ink but also finding herself.

Ellie is a teenage girl who has lost her way. She is going to London University College and is at the point of being thrown out. She stays out all night doing drugs and partying, but somehow she still cares about school and finds it important. This we learn when she, in a drug daze, shouts out the name Virginia Wolf. “[…] not actually in London at all, and then getting up and saying “Virginia Wolf!” very loudly in the middle of the room.” (ll.20-24) She is in a daze and suddenly she thinks of the author she has to write about. This tells us, that she actually does care, even though she gets easily distracted. She is very alert when it comes to school, probably because of the strained relationship with her mother. Ellie blames her parents for her enrolment on UCL that year and she looks back on it with horror. This and her relationship with her parents may be what drove her into drugs at first. She escapes the reality and she wants to seem tough, but her jumpy mind and her language make her seem fake. She avoids long hard confrontations and takes the easy road whenever possible. “She had to pee. she thought of the bathroom down a chilly uncarpeted hall and thought better of it.” (