Connections

I'm now on part three of Darkmans by Nicola Barker and I think it would be interesting to make some connections to the text.

For one thing, the fact that Kane is a prescription drug dealer connects to our society today, in the way that lots of people do prescription drugs instead of nonprescription drugs because they are more easily accessed and can give similar effects. I think it also says something about Kane, in the way that yes, he is a drug dealer, which would seem pretty hard core, except for that they're prescription drugs, which somehow makes him seem more pathetic. Either way it is a modern twist on your average drug dealer character, showing us how really anyone can be involved in the business.

A text to text or other media connection is Fleet. The troubled or special child seems to be a common theme in film and literature today. Many of the books I have read in the past year feature children similar to Fleet in this way, like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. In horror films it is used as a creepy factor, a child who is smarter than they should be, or knows things they shouldn't. It seems to be a combination of these two in Darkmans, because Fleet is both troubled and strangely knowledgeable.