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Isabel Huggan's Celia Behind Me

436 Words2 Pages

In the reminiscent short story ‘Celia Behind Me’, author Isabel Huggan paints a vivid picture of Elizabeth, the speaker and primary focal point of the story, advertising her as a notch under all the other kids, making her desperate for validation and acceptance from her peers. Her frenzied attempts at popularity conduce her to do and make barbaric comments, instilling the main idea of Huggan’s story, that the fear of not being liked has the ability to bring out the worst in young, vulnerable youth. “I could bash your head in I hate you so much, you fart!” Elizabeth’s vitriolic tone and cruel vocabulary towards the inferior, other odd-kid-out, Celia, delineates her as an insensitive, malicious little girl. Huggan characterizes Elizabeth and voices her inherent thoughts and feelings throughout the unorthodox tale. By adopting phrases like “my mother” and “I turned nine” she displays that it’s her perspective when she nastily describes Celia, using adjectives such as “bland and stupid and fruitlike.” Huggan takes advantage of this first person viewpoint to give her readers a better apprehension of Elizabeth and her reasoning behind her decisions. A particular illustration of this is when she changes her ways from getting “meaner and meaner” to …show more content…

Even though Celia failed a year and is now behind Elizabeth’s grade, she comments on Celia looking longingly with “her pleading eyes magnified behind those ugly frames” at all the other kids playing, just wishing she could join in on the fun. Elizabeth, revealed having no compassion, whispers with a tune in Celia’s ear “you can’t skip worth a fart,” she reasons as to why she couldn’t play with her. “Fart, fart, fart.” Elizabeth maintained a callous look on her face while Celia’s was crumpling as she stood there, remaining excluded so, this establishes Elizabeth as? What idea is being

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