The novel Double Exposure written by Brian Caswell revolves around the lives of twins who have an abusive father; the older brother Chris being artistic and a genius whereas the younger brother Cain just being the average guy. It also focuses on their love interests; Abby and TJ, both who are dealing with their own traumatic pasts. Caswell uses various techniques like dreams, flashbacks and characterization in order to convey the theme of trauma and the effects the past has on the lives of the characters, hence inspire the audience through it.
Caswell use of dreams highlights a deeper meaning of life since it implies that dreams will keep haunting an individual until they have the power to overcome their past. At the start of the novel the dreams reflect the idea that Cain wants to drown as he thinks “drowning is exactly the right thing to do”. The dreams Cain experiences in the first few chapters are always pulling him underwater, it is symbolising the trauma he owns, the guilt of being the only one surviving is pulling him beneath the surface. However, by the end of the novel when Cain finally accepts his trauma he “break through the shimmering surface into sunlight”. The imagery created by Caswell in the dreams gives the audience a vague picture of the scene, the readers know that someone wants to
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The use of dreams and flashbacks in the novel helps create suspense and shows different sides of a character. These techniques help the audience in forming an opinion on these characters as the audience then knows why a character behaves in a certain way. The use of dialogues further strengthens the development of characters as the characters expresses themselves through the use of dialogues. Through this book Caswell has given audience various messages about life however his main message to the audience is about moving on in