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    Debbie and Julie

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    Kristoffer Thierry Pedersen
    1) The story follows Julie, a pregnant teenager who runs away from her cold, conservative home to London where she meets Debbie, a prostitute who lets Julie live with her. 2) On the day of her delivery, Julie gives birth alone in an abandoned shed. 3) After cleaning up in a pub restroom, Julie returns home to her parents, showing the cycle repeating.

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    Debbie and Julie

    Uploaded by

    Kristoffer Thierry Pedersen
    2K views3 pages
    1) The story follows Julie, a pregnant teenager who runs away from her cold, conservative home to London where she meets Debbie, a prostitute who lets Julie live with her. 2) On the day of her delivery, Julie gives birth alone in an abandoned shed. 3) After cleaning up in a pub restroom, Julie returns home to her parents, showing the cycle repeating.

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    1) The story follows Julie, a pregnant teenager who runs away from her cold, conservative home to London where she meets Debbie, a prostitute who lets Julie live with her. 2) On the day of her delivery, Julie gives birth alone in an abandoned shed. 3) After cleaning up in a pub restroom, Julie returns home to her parents, showing the cycle repeating.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    2K views3 pages

    Debbie and Julie

    Uploaded by

    Kristoffer Thierry Pedersen
    1) The story follows Julie, a pregnant teenager who runs away from her cold, conservative home to London where she meets Debbie, a prostitute who lets Julie live with her. 2) On the day of her delivery, Julie gives birth alone in an abandoned shed. 3) After cleaning up in a pub restroom, Julie returns home to her parents, showing the cycle repeating.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    At a glance
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    The story is about a teenage girl named Julie who runs away from her conservative home and gives birth alone in an abandoned shed. It explores themes of modern parenting and city vs suburban life.

    The three settings are Debbie's apartment, the shed where Julie gives birth, and Julie's family home.

    When describing where Julie gives birth, in an abandoned shed, the author compares her to Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus in a shed.

    Kristoffer Thierry Pedersen 1

    Aalborghus Gymnasium, 08c

    Debbie and Julie

    The story called ”Debbie and Julie”, written by Doris Lessing in 1992, is the story
    of a pregnant teenager, who runs away from home. She meets a prostitute in
    London, who lets her live at her flat. The day of Julie’s child’s birth, she runs away
    from Debbie’s flat, to deliver her baby somewhere else. She finds an unlocked
    shed, which is housing a abandoned dog, and decides to give birth there.
    After the birth, she goes to the toilet in the back of a pub, where she cleans
    herself up, meanwhile the baby is lying in a telephone boot. After his, she returns
    to her home, which she ran away from, with her cold and conservative parents.
    Doris Lessing uses a real setting for her story. The city of London, which is a
    very proper setting for especially this story. why, I will come to later. The story
    has 3 settings, Debbie’s apartment, the shed, and Julie’s home. Debbie’s
    apartment is described as a very unsettled and messy place, with a lot of
    different people coming and going every day, and nothing to hold on to for Julie,
    except for Debbie. The shed is described in a very biblical way. Virgin Mary
    giving birth to baby Jesus in a shed, Julie giving birth to her baby girl in a shed. It
    is obvious that the writer has compared her character with Virgin Mary. Julie’s
    home is described as a very cold and harsh place to grow up. No touching from
    her parents, no showing love to each other.
    Basically, there are four main characters in the story, Debbie, Julie and Julie’s
    mom and dad. Julie is the first character we get introduced. She is described as a
    typical newcomer to a big city. She can’t understand why people isn’t threatening
    her, and commenting on her clothes, and etc. She thinks to herself, that it must be
    because of Debbie protecting her. And through the opening of this story, we learn
    a lot about Julie, and some small things about Debbie, through Julie’s thoughts.
    We meet the mother and father of Julie in the ending of the story, when Julie
    returns to her childhood home. They are in a loveless relationship, as described
    before, with no love, no touching and no caring. The city of London is quite of a
    well-described setting for the events of this story. The city of London is currently
    in a state of flux, where the people in charge are not quite sure how to evolve
    Kristoffer Thierry Pedersen 2
    Aalborghus Gymnasium, 08c

    their city. In this post-modern times, they are not sure where to begin, what
    things should look like, nor what the signs of the future is. Doris Lessing’s story is
    like the city of London. Julie’s parents are in a state of flux, and are not sure what
    to do about their children, or them self, resolving in a very conservative and cold
    home. This is why Julie hides her pregnancy, and run away from home. She is not
    sure of how her parents would react.
    The story starts in medias res, with chronological events. The initial situation in
    the story is basically Julie’s pregnancy. Then you can say things like her living
    with Debbie, her current state of mind where’s she’s very divided. But it all
    returns to Julie’s pregnancy. The development happens when Julie gives birth in
    the shed, and leaves her child unattended. The final situation is when Julie
    returns home, and see’s how much different her parents is from what she’s been
    used to in the big city of London.
    There are a lot of events which could eventually happen after the story ends.
    Julie could move back to Debbie’s flat, be a hooker and live in London. She could
    start searching for her baby, take her home at take care of her in a way that her
    parents couldn’t for her, or she could stay at her parents house, get an education
    and maybe eventually ends with living in the suburbs to London. The story has a
    very open ending, with Julie saying that she wants to leave her parents again, to
    go live with Debbie. This gives the reader a very dissatisfied feeling, because the
    reader feels like the story is only halved finish.
    The story has a very reliable third person narrator. The narrator is also very
    omniscient, as we sometimes follow Julie’s thoughts inside her head. As
    mentioned before, we hear about Debbie though Julie’s thoughts and actions.
    Therefore Debbie is described indirectly though Julie. Julie is also described
    indirectly, as we don’t get any hard information of Julie, but we have to figure it
    out herself because of her actions and thoughts.
    The atmosphere in this text is very dark and comfortless. We don’t feel safe
    when reading this story, because when we think about it, it could happen to the
    neighbour child, or even our old children. This feeling is conveyed through Julie.
    Her feelings, thoughts, actions, conversations. Everything that se does effects the
    atmosphere in the text.
    Kristoffer Thierry Pedersen 3
    Aalborghus Gymnasium, 08c

    The themes of the text would basically consist of post modernity. Cold and
    conservative parents, a way out of the suburbs, the big city contra suburbia. The
    themes makes you raise questions about you own life, which we also could that
    the message is. The writer wants to influence us, maybe even warn us.
    Doris Lessing has written a very strong story. a story which make you think
    about your own life, your own “setting” and what you would do, if any of this hits
    you. She also raises questions about the suburbs like “is it really that safe?”
    The way Doris Lessing composes her story makes it more close to the reader.
    When we doesn’t get a fulltime description of how Julie looks, and so on, we tend
    to use our imagination a lot more, and therefore the characters will become more
    lively. This short story is very near, and very harsh for the reader. But, all in all, a
    good and very inflective short story.

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