please help meee

Er der ikke en flink person der lige gider at se på min stil og rette eventuelle stavefejl...TUSIND TAK PÅ FORHÅND!

The need for attention has always played a major role in our society. A person gets attention from his birth to his death, and when the positive attention and discipline suddenly disappears some people especially teenagers become disobedient and disturbing. They try to get seen and heard by doing annoying and irritating things in hope of getting some attention, but they are acting wrong in their behaviour. So what are the consequences of our desperate search for a way to be different from other people and why do we want to be different? That is what the short story “Back to Front” by Nicola Barker from 2003 is about. In “Back to Front”, the main character Nick seeks attention and wants to get noticed but his attempts ends fatal.

One of the themes of this short story is egoism, selfishness. I think it is repulsive to read about his several attempts of getting noticed. I think that Nick has developed a terrible disease and the only cure for this disease is the “precious” attention. We have all been selfish once in a while, but in Nick’s case, it is exaggerated. Nick wants to be happy so he sees the attention as a euphoriant drug and he can’t get enough. But there is one very remarkable thing about Nick and that is his eagerness. He doesn’t give up but holds on to his lies, even if it kills him.
The other theme is the bringing up of children. People have kids, but some of them don’t know what a huge responsibility you have if you are a parent. In the 21century people get divorced like if they were changing socks. The divorced parents don’t take consideration of their children and what they feel.
Bringing up children is a job where you have to teach your child about ethics and moral, how to behave at home and among people and how to be on your own. These are the terms of the job and if you can’t accomplice this, you will get “fired”.

”Nick was back to front, but only on the inside” (P.1-line: 1). Since Nick was born, he has always been different, not on the outside, but in the inside. All his internal organs were combined in a way that it was opposite to how normal people were. So Nick’s heart was not on the left side of the body but on the right. “I couldn’t hear his heart at first but it’s beating well enough, except it’s on the right-hand side of the body instead. And all his other organs too” (P.1- line: 27-29)


When growing up, Nick was proud of his anatomical wonder and thought he was superior, and that his organs would make him cool and unique, but it didn’t interest the other kids. Nick thought that words, such as special, extraordinary, wonderful, brilliant and fantastic characterized him. “He was so convinced of his own superiority. And the other children had no interest in anatomy…At first he’d emphasized his difference and this had made the other children hate him… And then they teased” (P.2-line: 43-48) As Nick grew older, he was hated, teased, insulted, victimized and derided by his classmates and he became anonymous. People began to ignore him and his presence. The stages of Nick’s childhood have changed dramatically, from having the feeling of being superior and brilliant to becoming a blank. A nil. A nothing.

Much of Nick’s desire of being “special” comes from his own mother. His mother is aware of her son’s uniqueness and is very carrying the first years of his childhood. She was a pernickety woman and obsessed of checking her son every day. She would count Nick’s fingers and toes and be very concern about his health. “…there was nothing medically dangerous about Nick’s condition, and time, or the lack of it, was of no consequence whatsoever. Nevertheless, every day she counted his fingers and his toes just to make sure” (P.1-line: 33-35)

When Nick was fifteen, Grace married with a black man.
“…Grace remarried. His stepfather, Thomas Siswele, was Nigerian by birth. Grace thought Thomas was different, not ordinary like she and Nick were but, oh so special” (p.2-line: 51-53). Nick’s mother, Grace admire and looks up to her new black man named Thomas Siswele and that affects Nick’s self-confidence cause he is only “ordinary” in the eyes of his mother. “Each day Thomas would bring home the local paper…He’d read out news about fêtes and fairs…a fight, a rape, arson, theft. You’d almost believe, Nick thought, standing in the doorway, unheeded, that he’d gone and written that paper himself, with all the fuss she makes over it.” (P.2-line: 54-59) Nick clearly develops jealousy for the successful relationship between his mother and Thomas and will not accept their happiness. It is at this point in the story that Nick starts turning himself in at the police station for all sorts of crimes he haven’t committed. The lack of attention he receives at home results in attempts of being seen and he will do whatever it takes to make his surroundings notice him.

Nick then ends up in jail one day and because of his eagerness, he gets stabbed down in his heart by his cellmate Lyndon. Lyndon is a man who talks to Nick while he is in jail. They talk about which crimes they have done, and when it is revealed that Nick take credits for the robbery Lyndon made, he gets angry and stabs Nick because of his lies. Lyndon had no intention of killing Nick. ”Lyndon calculated that if he stuck his knife in, just so, in that place where nothing particularly important was stationed …He knew the distinction, it must be admitted, between grievous bodily harm and murder.” (P.3-line: 109-111). But ironically it ends with that Lyndon is the murder and at the same time the hero. He took the life of Nick and gave Nick what he has dreamed of during his entire life; attention.

The paradox of this short story is that without Nick knowing his organs were opposite, he would act like everybody else. But it is the idea of him being different that makes him act like he does. It is not a physically difference but a mentally. Nick can’t understand that the real difference between people is their personality and not their physical features. In the modern society which we live in, we only focus on the outside of a person and judges by the appearance and forget the inside. In contradiction to the story by Nicola Barker, is here a person who can’t stop thinking of his inside. “Back to Front” really is back to front!