The Changeling Essay Plan

Question -

Choose a novel in which the fate of a main character is important in conveying the writers theme.

Introduction / plot summary: Robin Jenkin’s downbeat meditation on the nature of pity, ‘The Changeling’ has a tragic ending; it emphasizes that the ‘Good Samaritan’ Charles Forbes fails to redeem the life of his pupil Tom Curdie.
• He sees himself as the boy’s saviour and makes the decision to take him on holiday
• Tom’s stealing and strangeness set him apart from the family
• Finally the pain of the experience pushes him over the end.

Charlie’s character: The opening chapter reveals that Charlie’s interest in Tom is self-righteous:

At last he spoke, in his most pontifical tones:
‘Tell me, Curdie, have you ever seen the sea?’

• ‘Pontifical’ has overtones of pomposity - Forbes’ religious nature;
• first meaning is supported by the headmaster’s opinion of Forbes as a ‘pompous bore’
• Tom has never seen the sea but can write eloquently about it – shows imagination
• Forbes takes him on holiday in order to ‘improve’ him; but this leads to Tom’s suicide.

Tom’s principals: strong character who lives by a matter-of-fact set of ‘principals’:

Never to whine; to accept what came; to wait for better; to take what you could; to let no-one not even yourself know how near to giving in you were.

• Doesn’t need Charlie’s help
• Away from Donaldson’s court he feels inadequate
• tries to ‘take what you could’ by stealing – sets him apart from the Forbes family

Turning point – the phone call:

‘I mean, Tom Curdie,’ he said; but it was really that mythical person Tom Forbes, he still thought he was.

• Peerie pressing his face up against the glass - as if Tom’s background is crowding round him
• a ‘mythical person’ – but Tom has to live in the real world

Turning point – Tom steals: seen through the eyes of Gillian:

“She began to realise that this suit of armour, of calmness and patience, forged somehow in the dreadful slum where he had been born, must be heavy and painful to wear.”

• She does not tell as she wants to avoid ruining the ‘presentation’
• Her sympathy grows for him throughout the book
• ‘suit of armour’ continues the idea that he is a figure out of a myth who doesn’t belong in her world - she feels the stirring of respect for him, even though he is a thief.

Tom before the suicide: From her point of view, Tom has a kind of nobility, even when he strikes the tree in anguish:

His face was hard and aloof, like a young Prince’s out of a story book.

His hand red with blood was like an emblem of eerie distinction.

• He doesn’t belong to the time in which he lives
• allusions to being a Prince and wearing an ‘emblem’ through pain and violence

Conclusion: this impossible dilemma is finally solved by Tom’s tragic end. Therefore I would argue that the book considers the suffering of others and asks what we can really do for them; it explores this theme through the fate of Tom, who had never known what life was like outside the slum where he had lived his whole life.