Windw

Have each group report back on their examination. Encourage discussion of why
Lowry might have chosen to tell the story using these multiple narrators. Have students
speculate what would be lost by telling this story from a third person omniscient narrator's
viewpoint. Students could take one section of the novel and rewrite it from the point of view
of a third person narrator and compare this with the way that Lowry has told the story.
Stream of Consciousness
Lowry allows the reader to get inside some of the characters' heads. She uses both stream of
consciousness and interior monologue to achieve this effect. For instance, on page 99 she
uses these techniques so that we can see how Rosie (interior monologue) and Asher (stream
of consciousness) are responding to the situation on the bus after they have changed their
hair colour and style. Have students examine this moment and compare and contrast the
ways in which Lowry represents Rosie and Asher's thinking. They might note, for instance, the
ways in which Asher's thoughts tend to run more freely than Rosie's thoughts.
Have students examine other moments in the text where the writer uses interior monologue
and stream of consciousness to give the reader a character's inner thoughts. Encourage
discussion of how this technique affects the ways in which the reader judges these characters.
ALLUSIONS APPROPRIATIONS AND PARODY
TA common feature of postmodern novels is the use of allusion. Allusion involves explicit
reference to people, places or texts. Some of the allusions that Lowry uses include: Leunig
p.22, Horoscopes p 24, Jim Morrison p 32, Tennyson's poem "The Lotus Eaters" p.35, Kurt
Cobain p.42, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy p.58, Brett Whitely p.64. Have students
research these references and then examine the ways in which Lowry refers to them in her
novel. How do these references affect the meaning of the text? Have students search through
the text for other...