Abstract

This creative writing thesis takes the form of a short novel narrated in the first person by a thirteen year-old boy, Lawrence Bole, who is on vacation with his family. When the novel opens, Lawrence is stuck in a tree. He proceeds to recount those events which he thinks led to his current predicament. As he examines his memories of the three summers he has visited Lake Chewanuk, he gradually comes to realise his own weaknesses and mistakes, but at the same time he is, almost inadvertently, sketching the lives of the people near him, namely his family and a few cohabitants at the lake. Though the narrative voice often sounds like an adolescent's, the conditions of narration--solitary, stuck in a tree--allow for some divergence from a purely spoken dialect to the level of cogitation or consciousness. This way, limitations of communication do not prevent the expression of the narrator's observations and creative ideas. The novel is made up of 39 short chapters. Because of the narrator's attention to detail, each chapter resembles a snap shot of a moment that as far as the narrator is concerned contains important information. Taken together, the chapters create a textual slideshow that the narrator seems to be submitting as evidence in a sort of self-conducted trial. As the narrative comes to an end, Lawrence is on the verge of deciding whether or not he is ready to put into practice what he has recently learned. He hesitates, however, because this would introduce him to a world he may not be ready to join.