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Doyle presents the breakdown of their marriage in many ways. The most usual is Paddy hearing shouts or a slap from downstairs. This is just a glimpse of the reality and seriousness of the problem, just like Paddy’s understanding of the situation at hand, this is realistic as a young boy of Paddy’s age only cares and knows about football and running around not these complicated scenarios. “I didn’t understand”, “She was lovely. He was nice”. This is Paddy’s childish view of the situation. One way that Doyle does well is getting into the mind of Paddy or a 10 year-old. He thinks about what he would do. Since Paddy can’t stand his parents fighting he thinks he can make them, force them to stop. “Stop, I had done it, I had forced them to stop!” I think that this is amusing but saddening at the same time! Another moving projection of the break-up is when da hits ma (which is moving in itself) who then walks out of the room or goes up to her room sobbing. This has a nock on effect, making ma think that the divorce is near and so she “held on to us for longer, gripped us and looked over us at the floor or the ceiling” obviously with great grief, passion for her children and thought of what will be the outcome of this horrible ongoing fight.
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