The Ocean at the end of the lane Research Paper

The Ocean at the end of the lane - Research Paper Example The book begins with a funeral taking place and ends with death. Neil Gaiman uses stories to keep the dark at bay. He also believes that the stories that are most effective are the ones with plenty of darkness within them. He effectively uses this throughout the novel. The narrator in this novel remains unnamed, he returns to Sussex to bury his relative, who is also unidentified. At one time while driving to visit the house he once lived in, he finds a lot of changes that one might only expect to occur after passage of many years. However, one thing that has not changed is a red-brick farmhouse that was once inhabited by Lettie Hempstock, his childhood friend. The book blends children’ and adults’ world and also blends reality and magic. The writer creates a dream universe which is made up of a ghost world characterized by lurking monsters and shadows. This world is seen through the eyes of a seven year old hero, Sussex and the afterlife, monstrous and magical, mundane and supernatural, a father-son conflict later and the clash of gods (Neil, 2013). He introduces another character who commits suicide in a car after been overcome by guilt of gambling away a lot of savings. The narrator then meets Lettie, a strange, self-confident country girl. The writer brings in a theme of association between money with death. Lettie and her family are creatures who only exist outside of time so as to prevent destruction caused by malevolence like the one of the suicide. This theme becomes clearer as Lettie introduces the narrator to duck pond, which she calls an ocean and in it floats a fish that has choked to death. Mystery starts to come in when the narrator one morning wakes up and mysteriously finds a shilling stuck in his throat. He immediately thinks the ghost of the opal miner has attacked him and he runs to the Hempstocks’ for help. Lettie then guides the narrator into another