Superman and Paula Brown's New Snowsuit

the first half is about the fantasy aspect of childhood, the second half is about the enroachment of the real world

establishes the narrator's imaginative and untroubled character

school and playing at superman

Uncle Frank and enroaching war

the propaganda film

the accident and accusations

guardian's disloyal reactions

the writer shows the significance of "the year the war began"

not directly autobiagraphal

innocence and imagination then betrayal and sensitivity

"I marvelled at the moving beacons"

"gave us a sense of windy superiority"

distrustful of sheldon - "I never played with sheldon except at recess"

"my technicolour dreams"

"superman used to come roaring by [in her dreams]"

"the blood beat in my ears like a slack drum"

"I began to wonder if"

"the silver airplanes and the blue capes all dissolved and disappeared"

"I did not [push Paula]"

shares the narrator's love of flight but not her sense of justice

"pale, bookish boy"

"high, clear voice [as he tells the lie to the narrator's mother]"

"shared my love for the sheer poetry of flight"

"sallow mamma's boy"

he empathises with the nazis - "borrowed a goose step from the movies"

"bossy and stuck up" - "nobody really liked her"

"she had to show us all her presents"

"you pushed me"

"[my mother] believed that I should have an enourmous amount of sleep"

by not believing in her - "I can't understand it"

"an extraordinary resemblance to superman"

he doesn't believe her - "tell me how it really happened"

as if superman has left her - "footsteps growing fainter"

waiting for uncle frank to be drafted - "queer foreboding in the air"

"we began to draw civil defense signs" - "we would practice an air raid"

the propaganda film - "I could not tear my eyes away from the screen"

"strange joy flickering in the back of their eyes"

"they were all moving in on me"

reference to warplanes - "the sound of the planes across the bay"

"the lights of Boston that blazed and blinked"

"sunset flaunted its pink flag"

details from surroundings are incorporated - "[in] his cape I could hear [..] the motors of a tousand planes"

evil is always thwarted - "we listened to superman"

"winter dragged on" - just as the war dragged on

"the skies were grey and blurred with the threat of snow"

"the dull green light [...] came down [...] cold and final as a window blind"

running to her home - "bright squares of light"

"cold draught from the hallway" - as her family is also affected

"window panes were fringed with frost"

first person

there is a mix of childlike language and more mature language

the first simple sentence versus the second more complex sentence with the clever "kaleidoscope" similie

only used for the first day of the accident - increases the impact and clarity

bright at the start but then dark at the end - "technicolor" - "dark" - "black"

"kaleidoscope" - "Dali landscape" - "Icarus" - "black cat's fur" - "unripe moon"

flying and superman

war

lighting - "pink sunset" then "dull green light of late afternoon"

uncle frank walking away

the cruelty the narrator comes to recognise in the world in the bullying and their family's betrayal

the same evil is present in children as in warmongerers

fantasy/reality, world of child/adult, expectation/experience, superman/uncle frank, narrator/paula, child's reputation/material possesions