Stil af MOT Time

Jeg har skrevet en stil om MOT Time - er der nogle der vil kigge den igennem en gang til for evt. fejl??

In this short story we hear about family relationships between the parents and the siblings. The main character in this short story is Jenny. She is visiting her father, Victor. She is only visiting him for her own sake because she could not afford a proper mechanic.
Jenny is 31 years old and she has a son named Omar. She is a single mother because her husband, Carl, left her when Omar was a baby. It seems as Jenny is a brave and hardworking woman because even though Carl left them, Jenny continued working. She took her banking exams and got a promotion – now she is the first black woman in the south-east to work as a banking manager. Omar had just started in school as a prepared pupil. Jenny has two sisters named Pamela and Angela. Jenny is the youngest sister. Her sisters have broken all contact with their father but they were questioning why he never contacted them. Either he did not care about them or he was in shame to contact them. It seems like Victor is not the best dad in the world – he forgets his daughter’s birthdays and he is not sure about their age. Jenny questions her feelings about her father and his new family. On one hand she wants to leave the house right away because she feel uncomfortable being with her father’s new family, on the other hand she wants to have some time alone with her father and talk with him and get to know him. When Jenny sees the pictures of her father together with his new family hanging on the wall in their house she got sad especially by the picture of her father and a boy in Disneyland. She could not remember her father playing with her or her sisters when they were little children. She realized that she did not have any memories of fatherly tenderness, or a good father-daughter relationship as a child or as an adult. Jenny has not a close or good relationship to her father whom we can see in the end of the story when they are sitting in the car together and Jenny is going home. They are both silent and it is an uncomfortable situation.

The setting is in England, because Victor is driving across London to take Jenny home. The story takes place on a summer’s day because the family is having a barbeque and they are enjoying their leisure in the garden.

Victor is 70 years old which is to be noticed when he ex. opens the door for Jenny and she notices how grey he is. His white hair made his face look darker. Victor has been retired for four years but he keeps himself busy preparing cars for MOT and doing minor repairs. Victor has a trouble expressing himself. It is hard for him to explain to Jenny why he married her mother “your mother … she was the only girl in Bayfield who … who could drive a car. She was big, a tomboy …” He cannot explain Jenny why he married her mother and that is why he ends up giving her an explanation that made no sense for her. It seems like Victor still cares about Jenny’s mother for that reason that he is still wearing his wedding ring, even though he is living with another woman which he is soon having a baby with “dad, why do you still wear your wedding ring?”
Though Victor is an elderly he has found a new woman in his life. Her name is Annette and she is from Barbados. Three years ago, Victor, moved in with Annette even though she is much younger than he and she has already two children, Mark and Michelle, from an earlier marriage and she is pregnant again with Victor’s child. Annette acts naturally towards Jenny. She does not seem to be affected by the situation. She is not embarrassed talking about the pregnancy which is why she says too much. It comes as a chock for Jenny to hear that her father is having another baby with another woman than her mother “Jenny’s jaw dropped, no words, no thoughts came into her head. Her mouth hung open.” Jenny needs someone to comfort her and that is why she wants to go home immediately. Victor says consolingly to Jenny that it was not his choice to have a baby, but Annette wanted to have one because she is still young “Jenny’s chest felt as if it was going to explode and she felt an urge to put her head back and howl.” Jenny had been thinking that Annette was a fat woman, but suddenly she realized that it was only her stomach that was fatter because she was going to have twins. Jenny did not have high thoughts about Annette “she reminded Jenny of all the single mothers at Omar’s school: standing around their buggies all day, smoking and gossiping, getting fatter.” Annette was just ‘that poor girl’ to her mummy and her friends. Jenny had never seen Annette as a person, but more as an object lesson of how her mother did not want her to turn out.

The main theme in the short story is the relationship between father and daughter. The relationship is not close. Jenny visits her father once a year at the time her car is going to have a mandatory check. It seems like if it was not for the car-check she would not have contact with her father as well as her sisters do not have. Jenny does not want to get too involved with Victor’s new family. She finds it difficult to accept her father’s new relationship and his choice in leaving her mother, sisters and herself. Jenny finds it difficult to forgive her father and that is why she has ambivalent feeling towards him. She cares for him, but she does not want to get too close to him and his family “she hoped that, as usual, he would separate her car keys from the pile on the table next to him, give her the MOT certificate, tell her the cost and let her go.” Jenny is missing having a relationship to her father. When she is going home it is difficult for her to leave knowing that it will take a long time before she sees her father again. It is hard for Jenny to relate to this new situation and her father’s new lifestyle. It is hard when one of the parents finds a new partner then it often ends up with that the children must choose side and they often choose the side of the abandoned one. Every child wants her parents to stay together but it is not always possible.

The poem Love Could Have Given Life is about a relationship between a son and his parents. The poem can be compared with the short story MOT Time. In the poem the parents believe they know their son and what is best for him in life “his parents thought they knew – all the art of living.” It seems like the boy has not lived a good life. His parents are being false because they are acting like good parents, but they are never giving to their son. He only sees the dark side of life which must mean that he has not experience great things in life “I’ve never seen the good side of living – so what’s it like to be dead?” He takes stuff because he cannot see the point of living – he needs to live, but he cannot because right now he is drowning.
Jenny also needs comfort and care from her father and she does not get it because her father is living his own interesting life. The son in the poem does also need comfort and care from his parents. They are both missing a normal relationship to their parents.