Dear Miffy, John Marsden- Change
Uploaded by ashybubba on May 06, 2008
Change which happens too rapidly can leave people feeling trapped and out of control. In the novel Dear Miffy by John Marsden this idea is clearly represented. Dear Miffy centres around the story of a young man who, after a failed suicide attempt is paralysed and placed in a psychiatric hospital. Tony then begins writing letters to his ex-girlfriend Miffy. However, the novel is about much more. Marsden is exploring many ideas about change. These include change of perspective, change of physical and mental state and changes in relationships.
Change of perspective is the most powerful change employed in Dear Miffy. Changes are seen in both the main character Tony and the audience as the novel progresses. The novel is written in the form of conversation like letters. Tony writes letters to Miffy but doesn’t ever send them. This style of writing is very effective as it allows information to be revealed slowly which consequently provokes the readers’ opinion to be ever changing. At the beginning of the novel we are sympathetic towards Tony. We then find out that Tony stalked Miffy. The audience then feels suspicious about Tony and the question arises, why does Miffy never write back? Tony then begins writing about his battered childhood. We immediately feel sympathetic towards him again. Up until this point the audience has had no strong feelings towards Miffy. When Tony reveals that he accidentally killed Miffy’s mother due to a misunderstanding, we are immediately sympathetic to Miffy and extremely disapproving of Tony. In that same letter Tony reveals that he felt so bad about what had happened that he attempted suicide and is now paralysed. The audience is again sympathetic towards him. Tony only directly addresses the audience once in the last paragraph of the novel. This is very powerful as Tony is actually accusing the audience of reading his letters to Miffy, which he obviously intended no-one else to read, “I don’t want them to read this, that’s the main thing”. “Dear F******* bastards who’ve been reading these letters… You c****… F******* MIND YOUR OWN F****** BUSINESS” Tony writes as his concluding paragraph. The audience is made to feel a sense of guilt about reading Tony’s letters which again provides authenticity of character.
The language is very...