"Anyway, it was those temper tantrums that really got people going, escalating everything, and around the time I'm talking about- the summer of our Senior 2, when we were thirteen- that was when the persecution reached its peak.
Then it all stopped, not overnight, but rapidly enough... Then gradually, people got bored and the pranks became more half-hearted, until one day it struck me there hadn't been any for over a week" (pg 21).
Ishiguro uses a plethora of small anecdotes through Kathy's memory to indirectly characterize Tommy. I think that these play hand-in-hand to shape Tommy's character in the most unbiased way possible by allowing the reader to infer their own personality traits of Tommy instead of simply hearing Kathy's view on Tommy's persona. Through all the tantrums, I learned that Tommy really just seems to be misunderstood and not really an angry person. He seems to be the kid who wants to be friends with people, but is not really sure how so he just tries to get attention in whatever form he can. During these anecdotes, Kathy really showed us the changes that Tommy made to better his lifestyle. Anecdotes also help me to relate to the characters more as well as make the story seem more plausible. The juxtaposition in Tommy's personality above shows us how quickly he was able to change when Miss Lucy told him that it is okay to be different (which is a nice contrast to Brave New World's values). I think that Ishiguro chose to juxtapose the different personality traits of Tommy so that we can really see what was bothering him and that he really just needed reassurance in his life. It also may become the start of a theme on how people can change their personalities so easily, but I would not go out on a limb to say that one yet.
I also think that these flashbacks and anecdotes will remain very active in the first part of the novel since it appears to be used to describe Kathy's childhood with Tommy and Ruth at Hailsham.
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