A Gap of Sky

A Gap of Sky
“A Gap of Sky” is a short story written by Anna Hope in 2008. The short story takes place in London, where we see a day from the perspective of our main-character, Ellie, where she has to make an essay due to Tuesday morning.
Ellie is a teenage girl, she is nineteen years old, and studies at University College London, or just known as UCL.
Ellie seems like a typical nineteen years old teenager. She sleeps in, waits until the last minute to finish her paper and she likes to party. There is however things that makes her an irregular teenager, such as the fact that she does drugs, and that she drinks on Mondays.
Ellie is a girl who has a hard time deciding what to do, and is very mood changing too. She changes decision very often, which we see in her many changing minds of making the essay. This decision changing mind comes from Ellie’s changing mood about making the essay. At first she is keen on doing the essay, and then she doesn’t want to do the essay and go to a museum instead. She, however, gets on other thoughts and wants to do the essay after all. Perhaps the fact that she will be thrown out of UCL if she doesn’t do the essay pops up in her mind?
All this shows us, that Ellie is a spontaneous girl. She does whatever comes up in her mind, such as the desire to go to the museum all of a sudden, instead of getting the ink to her printer, so she can turn in her essay and stay in school.
The narrative technique in this short story is very unique. There is a lot of covered speak and also a lot of monologue. We have a 3rd omniscient narrator. We know this because the narrator gets inside Ellie’s head, and we get to know her thoughts, how she feels, e.g. that she has a big pain in her skull (p. 4 ll. 83-84). We are also told a lot about the settings around Ellie, which are very detailed. Especially the things we are told about the city setting are very detailed (p. 3 ll. 56-75). Ellie walks around in London, and gets far and wide in this big city. Ellie seems a bit lost in herself; she can’t really make up, what kind of identity she wants. On one hand, she likes to be free, feel the greatness of a living your life, which then causes that she can’t be good in school, and makes her skip classes because she goes to party on a Monday. As she says herself, she doesn’t even want to take this ‘bloody course’ (p. 3 l. 66). On the other hand, Ellie wants to do the essay and stay in school, because that is what her mother would have wanted.
After all, it was her ‘fault’ that she was taking that ‘bloody course’. Ellie sees her mother in front of her in the short story, and at that point, she gets a new feeling. She wants people to see the substance she has inside her, and wants people to see what she can do. When she thinks of her mother, she wants to do something with her life, and I think that her mother is what keeps her going, and is the reason she hasn’t dropped out/has been kicked out of school yet. The fact that the city settings are so well described gets us the feeling that the city is enormous. You could easily be lost in the city, and it can be hard to ‘be someone’ in a city that big, and I think that this is what Ellie is trying to figure out, and this is the journey we are on with Ellie, as she is walking through London.
The language in this short story is also a bit special. There is a lot of everyday-speech in the short story, and a lot of slang too such as “fuck, fucking, K(a drug)” and so on. As we can see, Ellie also swears a lot which, for me, also is a sign of being somewhat of a regular teen. But again, the fact that Ellie is a drug addict also makes her stand out from the crowd, because that is not what I would call a normal thing to do for a nineteen years old teenage girl.
The title “A Gap of Sky” is in my opinion a symbol. I think it can be interpret as freedom, or as getting a chance. Ellie sees a chance of getting another identity when she sees her mother in front of her, or in other words, she sees a gap of sky to get another identity. Instead of being a nineteen years old drug addict, who is a big fail in school, she now has a chance to change and start showing people what she is capable of.
However, it can also be interpret as freedom. She wants to live her life as a teenage girl, which involve party, alcohol and in her case, also drugs and skipping class.
The main theme in this short story is identity. Ellie walks through London to find this printer ink, but in my opinion this printer ink, can be interpret as an identity. The very detailed city settings give the reader a feeling of walking around in emptiness, and being no one. Ellie seems invisible in this huge city, and that could be because she doesn’t know who she is, and that is what she is trying to figure out through the story.