Dawnie Morningside's Childhood

All childhoods are different. Some children grow up in the best families with loving and giving and caring. Other children’s upbringings are a little harder and tougher. For rougher families, often the children are given a lot of responsibility for far too young an age. In the short story WHEN WE WENT TO SEE THE END OF THE WORLD by Dawnie Morningside, age 111/4 , Neil Gaiman deals with the subject in a childish way, trying to bring his opinion on the matter to the light.

In the short story, we get to follow the young girl, Dawnie Morningside. The story is written in 3.person limited. As a ready, we only get to know the information she know, and how she see the world. The story is written as if it was a school essay. A typical; Write a

But in the end I wished for a shetland pony but it never come”. (P. 3/l.27-28). In this quote, even though she knows her parents’ fighting is a bad thing, she eventually chooses the childhood. She wishes for at pony, a far more childish dream, than her parents’ problems.

The title of the short story is also holding a lot of meaning. WHEN WE WENT TO SEE THE END OF THE WORLD by Dawnie Morningside, age 111/4. The title itself is, as the rest of the story, written as some third grade assignment. It connects with the content of the story hereafter. They also talk about the end of the world in the short story: “Whats after the end of the world I said to my dad. Nothing he said. Nothing at all. Thats why its called the end.” (P. 3/l.34-35). Whereas Dawnie is still living in a fantasy world with unicorns and unrealistic goals, her father on the other hand is living a very real life in a very real world. He does not have time for adventure and fantasy, but instead say the things as they are. He doesn’t sugarcoat it, too caught up in reality to dream: “He said, Wishes dont come true whether you tell them or not. Wishes, he said. He said you cant trust wishes.” (P.4/l. 25-26) We get a glimpse of the father, caught up in his own thoughts. Once again he does not care about his daughter’s childhood and how he is slowly destroying