Billy Elliot Research Paper

He then realizes that he does not know his family very well. This shows that his family is not perfectly happy or close. In Billy's life there is a superficial side of things, the people he socializes with are not truly his friends. They all are impressed with appearances, and how they appear to others. Billy seems like he is living the American dream when in reality he has gone through

Transitions are never an easy thing to conquer. It is often hard and stressful to cope with changes to one’s surrounding, but in the cases in which one manages to conquer this obstacle, elevation of knowledge and experience are great results gained from this achievement. I originally came from Africa and recently moved to the United States to join my mother and my step father. This great change in the things I had become accustomed to in my daily life was not easy, furthermore taking into account the fact that I had never experienced a transition so little as shifting from one residence to another.

Moments in Billy's life change instantaneously, not giving Billy a clue to where he will end up next. In one moment, he is sitting in his home typing a letter to the local newspaper about his experience with the Tralfamadorians, and in the next he is a lost soldier of World War II running around behind German lines aimlessly without a coat or proper shoes. He then became a child being thrown into a pool by his father and afterwards a forty-one year old man visiting his mother in an old people's home. In the novel, changes in time are made through transitional statements such as, "Billy traveled in time, opened his eyes, found himself staring into the glass eyes of a jade green mechanical owl." p.56 In the movie there is no such thing and different moments in Billy's life happen instantaneously. Because scenes are continuous as times change, the movie better displays the author's attempt to capture in the notion of being "unstuck in time." On the other hand, the novel does help the audience follow these time changes better by setting it up for the next scene, offering a background of Billy's experiences before they begin through these transitional statements.

Billy's tension starts to build when he realises that there are no coats, umbrellas, and hats displayed near the front door. This is very strange considering it's at a boarding house where you would expect to see visitors each day. However there are more extraordinary happenings that go on as the story unfolds.

Herrick shows that a relationship has ‘centred’ Billy. His life has direction, routine and meaning. Billy’s identity at first was seen as a loner, he was isolated and a rebel. His mother was absent and his relationship with his father was intimidating. The lack of connection to family extends to Old Bill, whose daughter and wife died, and to Freya and Danny, who do not have the guidance of responsible adults. Herrick symbolises his disconnection and loneliness in ‘I didn’t go inside for hours./I looked through the back window/watching him/reading the paper/in front of the television/as if nothing happened’. Billy’s sense of belonging allows him to reforms his identity. Herrick shows this by juxtaposing Billy eating like a hobo in the first person narration in ‘And wait for the family of five to leave. / I can see dessert/ waiting for me’ and later eating like a refined mature adult via the descriptive language in ‘with a white tablecloth/and napkins/ and proper cutlery and plates.’ Comparatively, Freya grows up after Danny helps her deal with her miscarriage. This highlights that a person’s identity is defined by their connection to others. Both composers show an understanding of each other, allow them to nourish one another.

Billy Elliot was a story of adversity and struggle. It follows a young boy who becomes a great success at ballet after he starts attending dance classes instead of his boxing classes. The play uses parallel storylines of the struggle for coal mine workers’ rights and Billy’s struggle to become a great dancer. It takes place in an impoverished town in the UK during the 80’s but it was performed in 2017 at the Berkeley playhouse. The play is impactful because it satires gender stereotypes and advocates for the payoff of hard work.

them of Billy's mum. I think the dad misses his wife so much that he

While completing his education, Billy and his wife Valencia fell in love. Valencia was the daughter of the owner and founder of the school. In the middle of Billy’s final year at the Ilium School for Optometry, Billy committed himself to a veteran’s hospital for nonviolent mental patients. While there, Billy was introduced to books by Kilgore Trout, who he later in life became very good friends with. Later, Billy and his wife Valencia had two children, a son named Robert, who is now a green beret and served in the Vietnam War, and a daughter named Barbara. He is lived on by both of his children and their

A point that pertains to looking at the world in a different perspective involves Billy thinking back to when he was just a boy and his father threw him into the deep end of the

Billy Elliot explores the concept of identity and how it can shaped and changed through life experiences. It tells the story of an 11-year-old boy named Billy, and his father, Jackie, amidst a mining strike in a town in Northern England during the mid-1980s. Billy creates his personal identity through dance as it is a means of expressing himself. In Billy’s world, strict stereotypes dealing with gender and sexual identity are enforced, which created not only an internal personal battle for Billy, but also an external conflict between him and his family. As a result, he was ashamed of and forced to hide his talent and passion for dance, shown in the quote, “I feel like a right sissy”. The song “Town called Malice” was played in Billy’s main

Once Billy becomes capable of time travel and comes into contact with the Tralfamadorians, he simply goes through the motions of life but avoids falling into a defeatist attitude. Under the tutelage of the Tralfamadorians, Billy fashions a brand new perspective towards society and enhances his natural persona, “When Billy accepts the Tralfamadorian philosophy, the passivity that he has displayed his entire life—from wanting to drift quietly at the bottom of the YMCA pool after his father throws him in, to begging Roland Weary to leave him behind—is justified. If the future cannot be changed anyway, why even try?” (Farrell 9). Though the interaction with the Tralfamadorians seems to allow Billy an outlet to construct his own ideals upon the universe, he nonetheless continues along the same path as before. Billy becomes an extremist towards passivity in life rather than utilizing the experience to impart a strong impression

Psychosocial development addresses the interaction between psychological and social factors. Billy was in Erickson’s psychosocial stage—Identity versus role confusion. In the beginning, he seemed confused about his identity, and he did not get along with Norman. This indicates that he lacked someone to identify with. Later on, the time he spent with the couple on Golden Pond and his relationship with Norman made him progress

Growing up in a tight knit community means Billy is constrained to follow the traditions upheld by the men in his family, these include stereotypical male activities like boxing and mining. Due to Jackie, Billy’s fathers, status in the community people look up to him as a masculine figurehead, this role is soon jeopardised by Billy’s new-found passion for Ballet. One scene shows Billy coming home after ballet and running straight to his room in an attempt to hide his ballet shoes under his bed, his father walks past and asks what he is doing, Billy then hides his shoes and says he has lost his boxing gloves to which Billy’s father replies “They were my dad's gloves. You better take better care of them, okay?” This suggests Jackie wishes for Billy to continue the boxing tradition. The traditional violence of boxing is carried across into Jackie and his eldest son’s, Tony, activities. The two are seen as trailblazers for the frenzied

“This scene not only expresses Billy’s rage, it visually represents his childhood. Billy is blocked by barriers of gender, class, and

One of the problems that Billy faced was to actually learn how to dance. His body had never had to have been controlled and every movement in ballet was controlled and precise. Another obstacle was that he had to deal with the abuse and disgrace from Jackie and Tony who were worried that Billy would have been seen as a “poof”. Jackie and Tony were disgusted when they heard Billy wanted to become a professional ballet dancer. This made Billy more determined to achieve his dream, not just to prove his family wrong, but other people who thought that boys shouldn’t dance.