We see many friendships throughout the novel, with the central character within them being Stephen. Stephen and Keith form a bond alongside the one between Barbara Berrill and Stephen. Frayn structures the novel in short chapters and large chapters to show that his childhood, when compared to the present day, was far more important. The chapters between Stephen and Keith show that despite it being the only hostile relationship, it was the most important one to the protagonist. Frayn presents hostility entering the one sided relationship between Stephen and Keith through the use of different paralinguistic and prosodic features which contradicts that they are friends who play together. Keith dominates the relationship due to his arrogant ways …show more content…
The nomenclature of “Barbara Berrill” could suggest importance to the young protagonist Stephen. In Greek Barbara means foreigner or strange traveller from a foreign land. This is interesting as Stephen is a foreigner in England, and one of the other major themes is identity within the novel. The protagonist is revisiting his childhood home in England and the fact Barbara teaches him things Keith had no knowledge of suggests she knows more about the world. Sexuality is brought to him through Barbara Berrill, as he starts to notice aspects of her. Before their friendship began we see she cleverly extracts information about Stephen and Keith’s so called games but we also see Barbara would like to replace Keith. He is questioned by her and sets the friendship in motion. “Why do you like him when he’s so horrible?” She recognises the things Stephen doesn’t showing already that she is more knowledgeable but would like to teach him. “Didn’t you know about people having boyfriends and girlfriends?” Here this is where Stephen starts to realise that Barbara Berrill is no longer beneath his notice. He has an unknown attraction to her by noticing the detail such as her “brown eyes”. Frayn presents the friendship here to be of high importance as it allows him to develop and learn about what is to come in the