The story is in contact with subjects like family, hope and caring instinct. The story is about a woman named Ann who takes her much younger brother to London, where she lives, to live with her in her house.
She is pampering him with her generous wealth and high hopes. On the whole, she acts as if he was her own child and takes on the role of a controlling but pampering mother. All of this gets serious consequences and the boy ends up dying of alcohol. The title refers to how Ann, in some how, abducted her brother from their both parents in Manchester without considering what would be the best for him.An unknown narrator, who is obviously a part of the universe of the story, tells the story.
It is told in past tense, which means the story has already been occurred. The narrator has a subjective point of view and out of the text we can tell that she is very angry with Ann. The narrator even considers the consequences of killing her. The narrator uses spoken language and also uses a quite informal language and keeps sentences concrete and relatively simple.
The story is illustrated as if it was seen from a distance, but even thought we get to know how her younger brother fells about the circumstances. This means that either the narrator is making its own theory and is therefore unreliable, or then the story switches narrator at some point.Ann, the sister, is a proud and successful paediatrician. When she was young she left her childhood home in Manchester for London as soon as the opportunity came up: "When the best job opportunity, working in a London children's hospital, came along, she couldn't get out of Manchester quick enough." (Page 2).
She bought her own house in Kensington and she is spending her time on cultural things such as theatres and art galleries, when she is not working.She loves children but doesn't think that other people, such as her parents, people know how to raise them correctly. It seems that she got herself sterilised, when she was young. This "act" really doesn't fit in with her love for children. Maybe she did not want to bring a child into a world, where children are "..
tragically lacking security" (page 2) and thought this was the best way to make sure. This could have left an empty space inside herself and therefore she has these maternal instincts witch is being expressed in other more unhealthy ways, like becoming a mother for her younger brother.The sister makes sure that her younger brother never has to do anything by him self. She gives him money, a job, gives him food, doing his laundry and buying his clothes. When he at last plans on moving out of the house but gets his girlfriend Marianne pregnant, Ann tells the girl to get an abortion, and afterwards find him a place to stay and even pay for it if necessary. This tells us that even though her brother is an adult, she has problems with letting him go.
This makes her become a pushy irritation for his girlfriend: "Marianne was amazed, furious and puzzled all at the same time. How could anyone behave with such brutal insolence."Afterwards Ann becomes obsessed with her new niece. She throws her away with expensive gifts and thinks that she is more able to know what the child needs than it's own parents. The fact that she always thinks that she knows what is best (and therefore superior), is what makes Ann so selfish according to the parents.
Even when her brother is discovered being an alcoholic, she refuses to believe that she, as a doctor, would not have observed it. Another example is when she takes the time to tell Marianne that she never considered her as a good mother and would not hesitate to tell the Social Services about her.When the brother has got married and has a daughter, his drinking problem ruins the family for him. It is a problem that certainly has been created by her way of raising him. It is also interesting that he regrets his decision to move to London with his sister in the end of the story.
He realises that it was an unwise decision to move away from his parents and he wishes he could go back to the beginning of everything and start over again, except his choice of being married and having a baby. This tells us that although he has reached the bottom line and has moved back in with Ann, a change has happened. At first he was just a boy blinded by the great city and had no concern about money because of his sister. Now he is a man with responsibilities, and had realised the mistakes he has made in life.I think the message of the story is that everyone has to stand up on ones own feet. You can't just go through childhood and growing up being adult without ever having done anything by yourself.
Marcia Wehr grows a lot of our personality characters in this period as described in "Adler's psychoanalytic ideas on development". In relation to "abduction", you could say that Ann is trying to fill in the position of the responsible and greater older child and sister, a function she is unfamiliar with. The brother, as the youngest child, is allowed to be the immature and careless child, which is symbolised by all his experiences with drugs, sex, drinking and smoking. This could also be the reason for his problem with alcohol later in his life.
The picture "A Man's Head in a Woman's Hair" by Edvard Munch, shows a woman who has surrounded her hair around a head of a man. She symbolises her loyalty as a mother and a protector. Her intentions are fine and what she only wants is him to be happy and healthy. Judging from the appearance of the man's face though, it seems like he is not happy about being confined by the hair of the woman.
This describes a comparable to "Abduction" and makes us wondering about the difference between a mother's care and negative dominance lies.Fiction versus Non-fictionThere is a big difference between reading fiction and non-fiction. The ability to make fiction is considered to be a fundamental aspect of human culture and one of the defining characteristics of humanity. When you write fiction there are no limits. You don't have to follow any particular systems or rules. In fiction you can shape a story and make it unrealistic and use all of your imagination and fantasy.
However, fiction does not need to be completely unreal. Real people, places or events can be involved.Non-fiction is developed as a fact. It is information, which the writer believes is true at the time of its work. Non-fiction always has to be truthful and is normally used in diaries, documentaries, biographies, newspaper articles etcetera.
In "Adler's psychoanalytic ideas on development" Marcia Wehr uses it to describe the work of renowned psychologist Alfred Adler.You could say that fiction has the ability to cross into non-fiction but not the other way around. If a story written in fiction has non-fictional elements in it, it would still be a work of fiction, for an example the movie "Troy". But if a non-fictional work has elements of fiction, it would be considered as fiction.Fiction is much more popular in conditions where you can express ideas in the form of entertainment.
It is much easier for a movie instructor to build on something non-fictional, where they can say that their movie is "based on a true story". This is more common than finding a true story absolutely perfect for the big screen.Non-fiction can also be used to express ideas though. An architect or inventor shows their ideas through their design and young girls write down their thoughts and feelings in a diary.
So you can say that fiction just has much better potentials of being hilarious and entertaining
