Marlena McCall LBST 2102 Mr. Robert Arnold 4 October 2011 Microtheme 4 In the book.

Boyhood, Coetzee is really describing, through reiteration, his identity formation. He mentions normalcy over and over again. The young boy spends the entirety of the book navigating through the events and other such scenarios of his young life. He is very curious and thoughtful, as demonstrated by his often questioning. Coetzee tries to define normal and intentionally fails because there is no normal. Nonetheless people use normal, a curious illusion, to compare and define events, behavior, and people. He also mentions different over and over signifying this incessant struggle he has between being normal and different. Normal is conditioned by the standards of the society and what they say is acceptable. Coetzee is probably a reasonable definition of different from the very beginning when he is given an inflatable red rubber mattress when all the other boy scouts have khaki-colored ground sheets. Giving the reader a prime example of Coetzees difference even amidst a normal activity. When he speaks about his family, in terms of normal or ordinary, comparing them as a normal father and an abnormal mother. He manipulates these states when he talks about them in the remainder of the book because his investigations of why people behave the way they do causes him to contradict himself. However these contradictions point out that he is triggered by specific thoughts to relate to multiple sides of a particular issue or concern.

Coetzees differences cause his incessant worry of being shamed or embarrassed. His differences also cause him to keep secrets, such as the fact that he likes the Russians, which is completely unacceptable in his society.