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‘The Trick is to Keep
Breathing’
By Janice Galloway
Narration
The story is told from the protagonist’s
point-of-view. The narrator of the
story is, Joy Stone, and therefore,
written in the first person.
This makes it easier for the reader to
understand Joy’s experiences and
develop a close relationship with her.
Synopsis
The novel follows the mental life of one woman as
she as she tries to find some meaning in
life/reason to keep on living following the
accidental drowning of her married lover, Michael.
It is the story of a mind slowly fragmenting under
the pressures of deep emotional stress told from a
first person point of view.
The novel is based on a certain degree of
personal experience as Janice Galloway had a
very difficult time as an adolescent, a student and
as young adult. Her traumatic experiences are the
basis of this novel.
Plot
In, The Trick is to Keep Breathing, it is
the internal events that are more
important; they are a collective series
of actions and feelings which show
the growing development of
depression, alienation, fragmentation
and despair, until, there is hope
signalled at the end by acceptance.
Plot cont.
The book is generally considered to be a very
accurate portrayal of mental illness and the choice
of first narrator(s) that explore a person's
consciousness is crucial to the depiction. Through
the medium of Joy Stone's consciousness we see
the increase of suffering and alienation from the
world around her. Everything becomes perceived
as a threat and the world increasingly becomes a
smaller and more frightening place. Sex and selfharm become a way of trying to feel something
instead of the numbness of depression.
Plot cont.
The major external event is not covered by the
novel: it is the drowning of Joy's lover Michael
Fisher in a swimming pool in Spain while on
holiday with Joy.
The plot does have external points that are of
secondary to importance to the narrator's personal
experience but are worth noting: the appointments
with the doctor, the phone calls to Paul, an exlover, working in the bookmakers and the
appearances of Tony and the visit by Myra, the
self-harm with the tin, all of these are external
markers of increased depression, but it is Joy's
own narrative voice depicting her emotional state
that carries plot progression.
Character: Joy Stone
Joy is the protagonist in the novel.
She is 27 years old and lives on a council estate on the outskirts of
Irvine, North Ayrshire, not far from the dilapidated cottage she
owns.
She is a successful Drama teacher as she escapes her depression
through putting a lot of energy into her job. Presumably to further
escape her feelings, she works part-time at a bookmakers.
She is anorexic, and possibly as a consequence no longer
menstruates.
Her misery is increased by reading women's magazines that add to
her unhappiness. This has led to a slide into what could be termed
'alcoholism' but certainly is a way to escape feelings.
Small events continually present challenges to her and she is
continually involved with people who it is not healthy for her to
associate with, a symptom of her depression.
The dominance of depression in Joy's life is such that the other
characters are very much background figures.
Character: Joy Stone cont.
Joy is always conscious of the roles different
people expect her to play: she rarely allows herself
to consider what she wants.
Joy writes many lists
Joy’s loss of identity could be derived from Joy
having no place to grieve for Michael. She is not
his mother - wife - sister or daughter, she is simply
his mistress. She has no real place in society, her
parents are dead, she is no one’s daughter, no
one’s wife mother or even girlfriend. Her job is the
place where she earns her definition; however she
is treated at work like a little girl, asked to smile
and appear happy for the benefit of the other staff,
to ease their working day.
Character: Michael Fisher
He was the husband of Norma Fisher,
and Joy's lover. He drowned in a
swimming pool in Spain when on
holiday with Joy before the novel's
own timeline. His death is retold
throughout the novel in italicized text.
Joy struggles to accept his death.
Character: Marianne
Joy's friend who is also a teacher. For
the duration of the novel she is
teaching in Kentucky, USA. She
regularly writes to Joy.
Character: Ellen
Mother of Marianne.
Lives alone in a house too large for
one person.
Loves to cook, and equates food with
happiness. This makes it rather
awkward for Joy to visit, given her
tortured relationship with food.
Character: Paul
Joy's ex-boyfriend.
Childhood sweethearts, they were
together for seven years.
He is often called by Joy for support.
He has moved on and is impatient
and exasperated by her.
Character: David
An ex-student of Joy's school where
she teaches.
Partner in Joy's affair while with Paul.
Currently in college David returns
after Michael's death and from then
on spontaneously calls and visits Joy,
usually resulting in sex.
Character: Tony
Joy's boss at her part-time job.
He calls her on a semi-regular basis to take
her out to various events, usually resulting
in Tony forcing himself on Joy, mostly due
to her submission.
Tony is seen as a rather repellent, odious
character who has identified a vulnerable
woman and intends to exploit her for his
own needs, and is not beneath using his
economic, social and psychological power
to do so.
Character: Myra
Joy's sister.
She is twenty-three years older than Joy
and they do not have anything in common
Joy is frightened of her since she used to
abuse her as a child, perhaps due to
having a miscarriage around the same time
as Joy was born.
Myra is another dark and bullying presence
in her life.
Joy carries the guilt of the victim in regard
to her.
Theme: Human Experience
Jane Galloway is trying to get the reader as close as
possible to a particular set of experiences, the
experiences of a young, Scottish, west coast, working
class woman with mental health issues.
The novel both gets across universal experiences opening a tin in Ayrshire is pretty much the same
experience as opening a tin in Beijing - and the specific
experience of doing something when you are Scottish,
working class, suffering from mental health issues and a
woman.
The attention to detail, the typography and the choice of
narrative style is all about getting the reader closer to
human experience, and empathising with one aspect of
it, and, most of all, understanding it.
Theme: Alienation
'Alienation' is the state of being isolated or
withdrawn, or of not belonging to or sharing
in something.
Janice Galloway was influenced by Franz
Kafka - the aspects of alienation that Kafka
identified are present in her work: the
difficult authority figures, the ability to
reason round and round in circles, the
alienation from the body and the focus on
consciousness at the expense of a wider
connection with the world.
Theme: Social Attitudes
A novel can clearly demonstrate, through
characters, how groups of people perceive and
are perceived.
We see how society views a person with mental
health issues. The doctors and institutions
involved with therapy view it as something to be
treated like a physical illness. There are forms to
be filled in and appointments to be met if this is the
case. A suffering individual is lost among forms,
visits and prescriptions. The consciousness of Joy
demonstrates that there is, or should be, a human
being at the centre of this process, not the need to
tick boxes.
Theme: Social Attitudes cont.
The novel explores the attitudes that people have
to mental health.
For Joy, it is a shameful secret that has to be kept
hid from her employers as it will arouse suspicion
and little sympathy. It is kept hidden from friends
and family members too as it will be seen as a
burden and when she does open up there are not
always people prepared to listen.
Depression is met with little understanding,
sometimes hostility, often exasperation and,
sometimes, with exploitation as people look to
take advantage of someone in a weaker state.
Theme: Social Attitudes cont.
The institution of the mental hospital explores the
medicalisation and standardisation of depression
and mental health issues.
An individual is not treated as an individual whose
mental ill health is to be explored, but something
with a physical and diagnosable illness which can
be treated by pills and a series of benchmarks can
be achieved on the way back to health and
'normality'.
The fact that someone cannot adjust to society
and function as a happy, working member means
they must be treated until they can, irrespective of
what is meaningful to that individual.
Theme: Women
In The Trick is to Keep Breathing, Janice Galloway
gives voice to Scottish, west coast, working class,
late 20th Century women but there is also the
experience of being a woman and being a human
portrayed that makes the novel accessible to
everyone, everywhere - a feature of all great
Literature.
The situation of women in the novel is portayed as
challenging. There is the need to work to make a
living and have some sort of independence. There
is also the need to have a relationship; however,
modern relationships are far more insecure and
people are much more mobile than they might
have been even twenty years previously.
Theme: Women cont.
There is still a great deal of condescension and exploitation
of women. The authority figures in the novel tend to
patronise or dismiss, and the men can view a weakened
woman as someone to exploit for their own sexual needs
and ego. A woman is constantly in danger of being turned
into a victim of male power through one institution (medical)
or another (company).
Other women, unable to blame men, can find other women
to victimise, like Myra, or they can limit themselves to the
society's assumptions about women - women should be
about knitting, and gossip, and diets, and cooking. These
limiting ideas are promoted as much by other women as by
men and they are an obstacle to women finding their own
individual paths in life. The theme of woman's attitude to the
world and the rest of societies relation to women is central to
the novel.
Class and National Identity
It would be fair to argue that both nation and class are
central to the novel in ways that are not always apparent. If
Joy was not working class, she would not be stuck in some
council estate that is bleak and ugly and adds no sense of
uplift to her daily mood. Instead, it further deepens her sense
of alienation. These estates are ubiquitous all over Scotland
and particularly so in the Clyde valley and the west coast.
Having to engage with institutions where you are a number
not a person is a feature of working class life. Many
institutions lack individuality and are under-resourced so they
struggle to cope with demand. Joy is not able to get the
attention or the time her condition merits, nor is she able to
take time to recover because of her economic position. This
is a fact of her being working class, although she has
entered a middle class profession.
Class and National Identity cont.
Scottish attitudes are prevalent
throughout the novel. Aside from the
'depressing' weather and atmosphere,
there is a very Scottish opinion of
'pulling yourself together' and giving
short shrift to the emotions.
Literary Techniques: Symbolism
Symbolism is when an object, an
image, a word, a person, a colour or a
setting represents ideas beyond what
it is.
Literary Techniques: Symbolism
Characters
In a novel characters can often be used as
symbols. A character represents him or
herself, and can symbolise their class, their
gender, their nation or a particular idea.
In,The Trick is to Keep Breathing, Tony can
be taken as representative of predatory
males; Marianne's mother is a symbol of
the traditional female roles and Myra can
be taken as an embodiment of those
bullying forces that push women back.
Literary Techniques: Symbolism
Setting
Setting can be used to represent ideas.
The setting of the novel is bleak and
characterless, devoid of any uplifting parts,
a bit like Joy's mental state. It is 'an annexe
of nowhere'. Again, a bit like Joy's mind.
The bleakness of Joy's consciousness is
reflected in her setting.
Literary Techniques: Symbolism
Actions in book take on a symbolic
status. The 'Bathing Ritual' and other
such acts are important because they
symbolise Joy's need to have order in
her life and her attempts to impose
order through such rituals. Having a
bath becomes a series of things that
must be done properly otherwise the
world, her world, is in danger of falling
apart.
Motifs
A motif is a recurring element or
feature of a story that has symbolic
significance or a reason behind
actions.
Literary Techniques: Motifs
Repetition
Throughout the novel The Trick is to Keep
Breathing words and phrases are repeated
again and again. This gives a strong
impression of a mind that is trying to hold
onto things, trying to keep it all together by
repeating things, making lists to impose a
sort of reasoned order and one that is also
drifting off to somewhere.
Literary Techniques: Motifs
Water
Water is a recurrent theme,
particularly in regard to the bath.
Water has associations of the water
of life, something that Joy is lacking,
and, as a bath, it is like the womb
when a child was safe surrounded by
the water of the womb. Many people
find baths comforting for this reason.
Literary Techniques: Motifs
Sex
Sex recurs throughout the book.
However, instead of being a lifeaffirming action, it tends towards the
miserable and the slightly seedy. It is
done as release not for love or even
much pleasure. The failure of sex to
satisfy at any point underlines the
misery and sadness in Joy's life.
Literary Techniques: Narrative
Techniques and Typography
First Person
A great deal of the novel is told in first
person. The voice of the narrator
predominates as does their consciousness.
This allows the reader to get to know and
experience what the narrator is
experiencing. It creates that sense,
common in depression, when you cannot
'switch off' and lose yourself in doing
things.
Literary Techniques: Narrative
Techniques and Typography
Script Dialogue
Janice Galloway uses dialogue set out like
a script to convey a series of different
encounters. The names of the people are
often changed to show the speakers
representing institutions or emotions or
ideas. One of the ideas conveyed by this is
that many exchanges are so predictably
routine and familiar. We know what an
exchange with a doctor is going to be like.
We know where it is going and what the
likely outcome will be.
Literary Techniques: Narrative
Techniques and Typography
Type in the Margins
There is type in the margins that
literally represents the voice, perhaps
the genuine voice, of Joy that is
marginalised. The voice that is not
listened to.
Literary Techniques: Narrative
Techniques and Typography
Capitalised Words
Capitalised words and sentences
create both the impression of
loudness and insistence. There is a
demanding voice in capitalisation and
it is another of Joy's internal voices
either panicking or bullying her.
Literary Techniques: Narrative
Techniques and Typography
Blanks
In depression, there are moments
when a person literally goes blank.
They go to 'another world' and seem
completely out of the moment. The
blank pages in the novel literally
represent the blanks that people
experience during depression.
Literary Techniques: Narrative
Techniques and Typography
Italics
Italics are used for the parts of the
novel which recall the past and which
represent another voice which is
trying to come to terms with things.
This voice is more reasoned and
accepting and it is the voice that
slowly heals Joy.
Literary Technique: structure
The structure of the novel also reflects the title of the novel in
respect to the task of breathing. There is a huge lack of
punctuation within the novel which almost represents a
breathless speech, coming back to the idea that “the trick is
to keep breathing.” The structure of the novel is very spaced
out, as if Joy is trying to catch her breath,
“especially for his wife
especially his wife”
The structure shows that despite her obvious
breathlessness, Joy is adamant that she needs to inform the
reader of her feelings, showing the reader that she will do
anything to find the “trick” of fluent speech which she finds
later in the novel. The structure used throughout the novel
helps the reader to realise Joy’s great discomfort with
catching her breath and this is also illustrated through the
title of the novel, ensuring the reader that Joy will eventually
find the silver lining to life. (http://higherenglish.blogspot.co.uk/)