The snapper door Roddy Doyle

Author:

Roddy Doyle

Title:

The snapper

Title-explanation:

I looked up what snapper means according to the dictionary, and it said is was 'a sharp remark'.
I think 'The Snapper' is the baby: because of Sharon's pregnancy all relationships change: first of all there are
all kinds of stories told about Sharon ( gossip, it's a example of sharp remark), but also she lies (lies can also
been seen as sharp remarks) about the father. And of course the relationship between her and her father gets
bad because of all the lies and gossip. And he acted very unkind towards her. So the child causes all these
bad relationships.

Publisher:

Wolters-Noordhoff BV => the Blackbirds of 1998

Date of publication:

1998

Date of first publication:

1990

Summary:

Sharon Rabbitte lives in a big family with two twin-sisters and three brothers in Ireland. One day she tells her parents (Veronica and Jimmy Sr.) that she is pregnant. They don't like it but they have to life with it. Sharon refuses to say who
the father is. She only says that he isn't married but he also won't marry her. Sharon did not tell her friends to avoid all kind of questions. But after a while the signs of her pregnancy start to show. Her friends take it very well. Jimmy hears
gossip about Sharon from George Burgess. He asks Sharon about it, but she denies everything. She visits Mr. Burgess
and she threats she will tell his wife of there drunken adventure, if he won't shut up. A few days later Mr. Burgess has disappeared from his home. He wrote Sharon a letter, telling her that he would take care of her and the baby. But Sharon didn't react and she decides to deny everything about Mr. Burgess. She makes up a story about a Spanish sailor for her friends. Jimmy Sr. has a heard time because of all the gossip and because Sharon doesn't show any feelings of guiltiness towards him and the rest of the family. And as revenge, he stops being nice to her. After a while Sharon notices this and she threatens to walk away. That wasn't Jimmy's purpose, so he promises he will act normal again. Then the family is getting ready for the arrival of the baby. Jimmy Sr. helps Sharon and he is even reading a book about pregnancy. When the baby is born, here name will be Georgina, but Sharon calls her George, after her father.

Characters:

Sharon:
She's a twenty-year old girl who gets pregnant of the neighbour. She often drinks (vodka and coke) with her mates and she likes children. She has many friends in the pub, but nobody is al real good friend. Her best friend is Jackie.  At first she doesn't like being pregnant and she's ashamed, because she'd lied about the father. But at the end she kind of likes it and
has finally seen that lying isn't the best way.

Jimmy:

Jimmy is Sharon's father and he also often drinks (beer) with his lads. He protects Sharon, because he believes her.
First he isn't that impressed by the pregnancy, but slowly he begins to hate Sharon for it. But at the end he loves her and
he helps her.

Setting:

The story takes place in Barrytown (barry means happy in Irish). The town is suburb of Dublin and isn't very big.  
It is a 'strong' community with a great sense of togetherness, and that is in compare with the Rabbitte family.
The family is protecting itself against the community, because the family thinks Sharon isn't lying.
The community is protecting itself against other communities.

Point of view:

It's an omniscient narrator. Someone outside the story tells us everything, everyone's feelings and even
gives some comment once in a while.

Theme:
1) Lying => the story shows that lying isn't always the right way to avoid your problems. First she denies the father
                   is married. When Mister Burgess admits he's the father, Sharon lies, and says that there was a Spanish sailor,
                   she even says it to Mister Burgess. But she isn't feeling better saying that. And at the end of the book she
                   realises that lying isn't always a solution, and she 'honours' him by giving the baby his name.  
2) Groups/relationships => first of all the whole community is one big group and that goes the same for the family.
                                            And the family is even getting closer and closer because of the pregnancy, because they
                                            have to support each other to get throw this hard period, they all need each other.

Genre:

Realistic novel

Writer's biography:

Roddy Doyle was born in 1958 in Dublin and has grown up there, in Kilbarrack, to be precise. Kilbarrack is a suburb in the north of Dublin, close to the sea.  He was a Geography and English teacher there and stayed in touch with all generations of his neighbourhood. He loves that part of town and knows that inside the aggressive, foul mouthed, drunken "eejits" there is (more often than not) a heart of gold. At one point Doyle felt that the only way to express his true love and sympathy for the suffering people around them was to write about them. His first book The Commitments was made into a very successful movie by Alan Parker and it helped to establish Roddy Doyle's reputation as a writer of best-sellers.