The River Underground

Her er en guide til analyse og fortolkning af novellen “The River Underground” af Richard Tromans. Her bliver du klædt godt på, hvis du selv skal skrive opgave om teksten, idet vi dækker alle de væsentlige elementer: Indhold og opbygning, tema og symbolik, personkarakteristik og miljø og flere andre ting, som er relevante.

Præsentation af teksten

Titel: “The River Underground”
Forfatter: Richard Tromans
Udgivet i: Diaspora City
Udgivelsesår: 2002
Genre: Novelle

Richard Tromans (b. 1970) er en britisk forfatter født i Stafford, som nu bor i London, hvor han arbejder som journalist. “The River Underground” udkom i antologien Diaspora City: The London New Writing Anthology.

I denne study guide dækker vi et extract, der består af den første fjerdedel af novellen, som fokuserer på Husmans tilvænning til livet i London.

Uddrag

Herunder får du et udsnit af vores analysehjælp:

Social setting

The social setting in the short story explores the contrasts between life in England and life in Gambia. One of the main contrasts is that the English can afford to travel and do volunteer work in Gambia, while the Gambians barely struggle to make a living and sometimes resort to stealing out of desperation. Since Husman is a teacher (p.3, l.9), this shows that even skilled workers and those with higher status jobs are underpaid. The story also hints at the inequalities in Gambian society, where the elite is disproportionately wealthier than the general population. These inequalities are also related to Britain’s colonial past. It is suggested that Britain still profits from resources taken from former colonies such as Gambia (p. 4, ll. 7-9).