Green days by the river door Michael Anthony

Title: Green Days By The River
Author: Michael Anthony
First published: 1956
Pages: 192

Facts

Michael Anthony lives in Trinidad.

The story takes place in a village. The name of the village is called Pierre Hill.

Characters:

Shellie Lammy: He is very tall and friendly. But he is easily influenced by his friends. He is very responsible and a flat character.

Rosalie Ghidaree: She is a dougla, which means that one of her parents is Black and the other one is Indian. She is nice and friendly. Sha has long black hair and is very pretty. She is a flat character.

Mr.Ghidaree: He is Rosalie\'s father and he\'s a Indian. He also owns a lot of land which he plants rice, oranges, sugar apples and coconuts. He\'s a flat character.

Mr.Lammy: He\'s very ill and is a very good father. He\'s also honest. He\'s Shellie\'s father. He\'s a flat character.

Mrs.Lammy: She\'s Shellie\'s mother. She\'s a nice person. She also works to take care of Shellie and his father. She also helps out by working in the cocoa-fields. She\'s a flat character.

Joe, Freddy and Lennard are Shellie\'s friends. They like to drink and talk about girls. They\'re not a very good influence on Shellie but they are friendly. They are flat characters.

Joan: She\'s also pretty and she likes Shellie a lot. She\'s friendly and understanding, but she is also a little jealous. She\'s a flat character.

Shellie tells the story.

The story is dived into 29 chapters. The passing of time is from the summer till next year March. There are flashbacks to a later scene of event.

Shellie has feelings for Rosalie but then he meets Joan and forgets all about Rosalie. After Joans leaves the feelings for Rosalie return.

Genre

Soap opera: Shellie likes Rosalie, but Lennard and Joe like her also. Rosalie like Joe too but after a while he doesn\'t like her anymore. Then Rosalie likes Shellie but he likes Joan. Then Lennard likes Joan too.

Interpretation

The book was written to trace the transitional world between childhood and maturity. The message is that it\'s not easy growing up. That you must savour your childhood and try not to rush to grow up too fast. Because when you are older you have a lot of responsibilities and other problems to deal with.

The connection between the theme and the title: Green means young and immature. (Shellie)
Mr.Ghidaree\'s plantation is next to the river. After he had helped Mr.Ghidaree for the first time that\'s when his life had begun to change.

Summary

Shellie is adjusting to a new and strange environment. When his parents move to a new village he meets new girls. He is charmed by an Indian girl Rosalie Ghidaree and is flattered by his friendship of her father, who tacitly accepts him as a potential son-in-law. At the same time there is Joan, who is more cheerful and accessible. Joan is staying with the Lammy family for Christmas vacation. The last day of Joan\'s visit Shellie takes her to the Ghidaree plantation to show her the beautiful scenery. Carving each other names on a tree, they leave the plantation.
Three weeks into the New Year Shellie father dies of lung cancer. Days later he goes to see Joan, but she isn\'t home. He sits under a cashew tree and accpets his friend\'s and Rosalie\'s condolences. His friends take him out for a drink. He returns home at three o\'clock in the morning. Weeks later, he decides to stop working for Mr.Ghidaree and to quit school. He is now working at the cocoa-field to help with the bills and to take care of his mother. His mother doesn\'t have to work overtime anymore. Rosalie is very jealous of him and Joan, because he is spending a lot of time with her.
Shellie is invited to a school party. While he is dancing to slow music with Rosalie, he realizes that he still likes her. He then leads her outside and deeply kisses and caresses her. Now Rosalie assumes that he is going to break-up with Joan. She goes to her plantation and relaxes under the apple tree. While getting up she unconsciously looks at the apple tree. She sees Shellie and Joan\'s initials carved on the tree. She looks at it disbelievingly. She runs home and tells her father everything. How she let him kiss and touch her, how he led her to believe that relationship with Joan was over.
The next week, still very angry, Mr. Ghidaree asks Shellie to accompany him to his plantation. He gives Shellie a watering can to water the plants while he goes at the other end of the field to pick some fruit. He tells his dogs to stay behind. All of a sudden the dogs attack Shellie. He scream for help but Mr. Ghidaree doesn\'t come until the dogs are finished savagely biting Shellie. Then he explains to Shellie why he had commanded the dogs to bite him. Because Shellie had led his daughter on, defiled her and lied to her. And because he touched her intimately he has to break up with Joan and when his daughter is eighteen he will have to marry Rosalie. He agrees and Mr. Ghidaree takes him to the hospital. Weeks later, after working hard on the plantation, he is resting under a tree, looking at the green scenery and at the river. He realizes that this is the place where it all began.