Paddy Clarke Essay, Research Paper

The novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha has no authorial presence at all, yet the reader

gains a richer understanding of the situation than Paddy ? or any other

10-year old ? could ever have. With regard to the parent?s break up, how

does Doyle achieve this? There are many factors which suggest how Doyle has

succeeded in creating a ‘triangular relationship’ between himself the reader and

the narrator ? Paddy Clarke ? so that the reader has a greater awareness of

the predicament that Paddy is in. Doyle?s achievement is how he alternates the

poetic and realistic without once lapsing into stream-of-self-consciousness; the

only way we – as readers can tell it’s written by an adult, is by the spelling.

We see the violence in Paddy’s life peripherally; Doyle tells us nothing more

than what the child sees and comprehends. One of the reasons for Roddy Doyle?s

success lies in creating a realistic and convincing character for a 10-year old

child. He does this by his clever use of language, and also in how he arranges

his sentences to convey deep emotion and feeling than any emotive language

could: ?He?d hit her. Across the face; smack. I tried to imagine it. It

didn?t make sense. I?d heard it; he?d hit her. She?d come out of the

kitchen, straight up to their bedroom. Across the face.? ? P190 In this

instance, Doyle has used short and evident sentences, to invoke a feeling of awe

and confusion. The short sentences represent how Paddy is dumbstruck and lost

for words, shocked by what he?s heard ? this is also highlighted when he

says here; ?I tried to imagine it. It didn?t make sense.? Here, he also

emphatically uses onomatopoeia ? ?smack,? ? which adds to the sense of

fearful respect and also Paddy?s child-like interpretation of events.

Repetition is used here ? ?Across the face? ? heading his oft-repeated

amazement. Another example of how Doyle uses repetition can be seen on pages 153

and 154: ?I waited for them to say something different, wanting it -

??Only now, all I could do was listen and wish. I didn?t pray; there were

no prayers for this?. But I rocked the same way as I did when I was saying

prayers?.I rocked – Stop stop stop stop ? .? Doyle uses repetition to show

Paddy?s anxiety, when he repeats ?stop?. Here, Paddy is mentally

commanding his parents to stop in desperation, as he thought he had done on page

42: ? – Stop. There was a gap. It had worked; I?d forced them to stop.? He

believes that he has the power to make his parents stop arguing, as shown on

page 42, but realisation dawns when he repeatedly tells them to stop on page

154, and it doesn?t work. This reflects on the fact that Paddy Clarke is a

child, and his inability to restrain his emotions is a facet of his youth

showing through. Another childish aspect throughout the book is how Paddy ?

like other children at that age would ? spouts offhand irrelevant knowledge

that?s he?s picked up from class or elsewhere: ?Snails and slugs were

gastropods; they had stomach feet?. The real name for soccer was association

football. Association football was played with a round ball on a rectangular

pitch by two sides of eleven people?… Geronimo was the last of the renegade

Apaches?? I learned this by heart. I liked it.? Readers can relate to

this, as we can all remember when we?d learnt something that we?d found

particularly fascinating at school or the library, and recited it all the time,

thinking we were clever. Another reason why the reader of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

has a higher understanding than is simply because the adult audience has more

experience in family issues ? from our own experiences. We can see the

violence in his life superficially; we are told nothing more than what the child

sees and comprehends. A good example of this can be found on page 95: ?Ma said

something to Da. I didn?t hear it?. I looked at ma again. She was still

looking at Da. Catherine had one of Ma?s fingers in her mouth and she was

biting real hard ? she had a few teeth ? but Ma didn?t do anything about

it.? Here, Paddy has given us an insight to the emotional turmoil that exists

in the family, but Doyle ? again ? has not used any emotional adjectives to

show this. We can interpret what is happening from his parent?s actions, which

justifiably speak louder than words. Paddy?s mother is staring at Da, waiting

from him to answer, and the baby is biting into her finger, hard as Paddy says.

We can tell that Ma is angry as her husband is not speaking to her, not by Doyle

describing her anger but by the fact that she pays no heed to the pain that the

baby is calling her ? such is the animosity that exists between the couple.

Paddy cannot see this, and is wracked by confusion. This is shown a few

paragraphs later: ?Ma was getting out of the car. It was awkward because of

Catherine. I thought we were all getting out, that it had stopped raining. But

it hadn?t. It was lashing.? We can see that Ma patience has been tested and,

in her ire, she leaves the car. Conformation that Paddy does not understand is

sealed when he asks ? ? Has she gone for 99s?? His father doesn?t reply,

the silence filling the void between him and Ma ? unbeknown to Paddy, whose

innocent question remains unanswered. We are able to read between the lines, and

by doing this we can detect the silent turbulence, unlike Paddy whom is the

story?s narrator. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is written in the first person, and is

therefore devoid of the authorial omniscience and intrusiveness that would allow

Doyle to relate to the reader. The fact that the story is set in a first-person

narrative – with a bewildered 10-year old as the narrator – allows us to fill

the gaps in Paddy?s mind, and we can connect with Doyle?s imagination – and

in doing this he has effectively succeeded in creating a realistic world through

the eyes of an imaginary child. When reading, the reader and Paddy develop a

symbiotic existence, where Paddy is necessary to allow us to see, and hear and

act as a viewpoint into his world, and our superior comprehension can observe

the underlying tension that ultimately culminates in the parent?s divorce.

Roddy Doyle writes potent novels, rooted in working-class experience. His first

three novels, known as the Barrytown trilogy, focused on the Rabbittes, a family

of eight whose lives are a mixture of high comedy, depressing poverty and

domestic chaos. The novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha explores with remarkable

subtlety the development of a small boy’s empathy, as he simultaneously masters

language and discovers a new understanding of pain. Written almost entirely in

dialogue, his books are full of slang, colloquialisms, and vulgarisms. In the

past, Doyle’s raw portrayal of working class Ireland has received as much

censure as praise in his native country. "I’ve been criticised for the bad

language in my books–that I’ve given a bad image of the country," said

Doyle. The author’s own view is that his job is simply to describe things and

people as they really are. In Doyle’s world, the lives are tough, and the

language is rough, but beauty and tenderness survive amid the void of bleakness.

All quotes are taken directly from the Minerva publication of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha

Ha.

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