Nick
The story “How to Be Good” by Nick Hornby is a philosophical story on the changes a person goes through in a drastic way and question whether this changes are for the better way of life. Hornsby wrote this book in 2001. The book is about characters trying to establish their identities. This is seen in the main characters David Grant and Katie Carr are an unhappy couple. From the book how to be good, the characters aim on establishing ways to be good and what it takes to be one. This aim of morality is closely related to the theme of happiness and money which we can question is happiness related to money and is the need of identity makes one a greedy person?
Grant the husband to Katie one who constantly criticizes and is sarcastic about everything and anything in the newspaper columns and about his wife. Carr at some point feel tired of her married life and end up thinking how she is even married to a person whom she no longer feels attracted to anymore. But like suddenly, everything change as we are introduced DJ Goodness who meets Grant and changes his life by healing him in a spiritual way. This is the point when Grant decides to change his lifestyle and do all, he can to be good person and he promises himself to provide good life to his relative’s children and his wife. This makes high to become b to charitable to the people around him.
When selflessness and charity By Grants reaches great heights, the author through Carr starts to question what limit selflessness should reach. The author also questions on the importance of one becoming a good citizen while at the same time being mindful of his family. This is where the central aspects of philosophy come in. being a good citizens a debate which has been there since time immemorial questioning on if really being completely selfless is a human aspects just like all the other books written by Hornby he, the book How to Be Good is full of humor presented in the story which can be considered to be relatively serious. For this book however the main character Grant is depressed and typically sarcastic but he faces a different situation where by the end of the novel the had already lost his earlier traits.
David Grant is one of the main characters who the whole story revolves around. His life completely changes in an abrupt way to be a good man from a man considered to be the angriest Man in Holloway. This is the time he meet Goodness DJ. To either with him they go around telling people tom mind about the homeless by giving them to live in their spare rooms. Grant and D J preach the gospel of reversal which means that people need to change and mind for the needs of those who are less advantaged and have for long been ignored but no one listens to them.
The story shows evidence of how a couple experiences pressure in their relationship. Hornby uses this couple to reflect on the outward social forces present in the wider range of the society. Carr comments on the sudden change of his husband by stating that “the trick, it seems to me, is to stave off regret. That’s what the whole thing is about. And we can’t stave it off forever, because it is impossible not to make the mistakes that let regret in, but the best of us manage to limp on into our sixties or seventies before we succumb. Me, I made it to about thirty-seven, and David made it to the same age, and my brother gave up the ghost even before that. And I’m not sure that there is a cure for regret. I suspect not (, Horny 2001, PPP 123)”. This indicates the narrator CARR WHO is a 37 year old represents her indent which has no concreteness. She has reached a point in life where she regrets. She regrets even why she got married to. The first person narration n of the character tells us even what she thinks. She tells us that, “I am in a car park in Leeds when I tell my husband I don’t want to be married to him anymore.” But we know that David his husband is to even present in the car with her. She is a doctor and a bread wine of the family. Through the monologue she is having in the car; we get to learn that Katie is not courageous. She doesn’t see herself squarely facing her husband and tell him point blank that she is no longer interested in their marriage relationship. Instead of telling him so, in the home setting she would opt to call Grant using her mobile phone. On the phone she doesn’t raise the issue of breaking the marriage but instead tell her husband to write a note to the class teacher of their daughter, Molly. She confirms that she realizes she is not the kind of person to tell her husband that she doesn’t want to be married anymore.
Her recent involvement with Stephen is more of a symptom than a cause of their marriage crises. The transformation which her husband has undergone from being a sarcastic and an ever criticizer to one who is righteous , pious , provides for the hungry and save the homeless does not make Carr happy either. Carr is a strong minded woman and does not get convinced of Grant’s sudden changes. She still finds it hard to live with the new David. She portrays the themes of disappointment, anger and a relationship in crisis which makes her life to befall of desire. Her failure to communicate with her husband makes them even much father apart because how the husband would even knew what she is feeing or going through?
Katie questions on the transformation David has suddenly gone through. She I philosophical in trying find answers of how good can a person be… does it keep it mean providing for the material needs of people or the emotional needs? Or is she the one who doesn’t know how to be good. Katie has always considered herself to be a Good person which is also proven by the profession she is in as a doctor. This makes her to be very critically before she gets convinced of her husband’s sudden change of adopting the homeless kids and convincing others.
Katie is a person who is able to check her life and analysis her point of view of life. The recent new actions by her husband she finds herself questioning about her goodness she sees herself as a person who cares about the homeless. But the main question is how wills she going to withstand the actions of his husband on daily basis. She also questions o how she will make her life fit doable and practical actions here husband has recently started and to what extend will she have to change her life to valid being ridiculed by others? She is also wondering how much guilt she would to continue enjoying here comfortable life as others suffer. And how much time commitment and energy she is going to devote to solve all the problems in the world. She also wonders how much time and committed will she commit to her family and here own life as well.
These self questioning about her life and those around her shows that she is trying to establish herself and what her role is life is supposed to be. At the end of the novel we see her finding her identity as he comes to realize that And it is only when I have shut the bedroom door for the third or fourth time on my husband and children to find out precisely how Vanessa Bell’s life was better than my own that I work it out” ( pp 235). Her solution was to establish the route cause of her problem and to fix the broken marriage.
Nick Hornby has managed ton create a psychological book which enable the readers to of their own moral Good. Through Katie she has managed to question on Moral goodness sand how good we can be in
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