Bog Child: An Alternative Perspective on the Hunger Strike

I think that Dowd did a great job trying to convey how the hunger strike not only affected the person physically doing the strike but also the family members.  From the film that we watched in class, it was obvious that every person who was considering going on the strike knew that it would affect their families, but the actual familial aspect of the hunger strike was left out. This alternative perspective allowed Dowd's audience to see how families were on the brink of being torn apart because of their want to support the cause their sons were fighting for and their love of their child--they didn't want their child to die.

Another positive aspect of this is that the perspective of the family comes at a distance.  The reader does not actually get to know the grim and graphic details of what is truly going on in that prison.  For example, when I was reading the novel I was picturing a modern prison that we would have in the United States.  After we watched H3 in class I knew that my visualization was false, and discovered that the conditions of the Irish prison was a lot worse than how inmates have it in the United States.  If the novel had included these graphic details it would probably no longer be appropriate for adolescents to read.  Because the family is the main focus of the narrative adolescents are being exposed to something that they never knew about before.  I certainly didn't know about this part of history.  I think that Dowd accomplishes what she set out to do, expose adolescents to a little told part of history.