The Last Circus

We all go through different stages of development in our life, and some of these stages are not as easy as others. At some point every little child needs to leave his or her childhood and grow up, because no matter how much you want to, you can’t stay a child forever. The development from a child to an adult is an extremely sensitive and tough period. The things you used to know suddenly change and become something completely different. It is this kind of development we see in the short story “The Last Circus” which is published in 1980 and writhen by Ray Bradbury. The development is shown through the main character and is brought up in many various ways.

The short story is based on the main character, Douglas, who lives with his father, his mother and his brother Skip. The family is an ordinary middle class family, which is shown because they don’t have any kind of extraordinary luxury. The family fits right into the old traditions where the mother cooks, cleans and takes care of everyone. The father is more concerned about what is going on in the world and is not very involved in his two son lives. In the beginning of the story Douglas seems to be a normal young kid who loves spending time with his best friend, Red Tongue, but as the story goes on it is getting more clearly that Douglas is going through a development from being a child to becoming an adult. The way Douglas is starting to mature shows the development, and is also the biggest difference between Red Tongue and Douglas. All the way through the circus show Red Tongue is amused and laughs, but that is not the way Douglas reacts to the show. To him the circus is no longer something he finds interesting or funny, and it is at this point that he has developed from being a young, childish and innocent kid to a more adult person who doesn’t think that circus shows are the meaning of life anymore. This makes Douglas a round character, and Red Tongue a flat. He goes through a development, witch Red Tongue...