Fear in "Letters from the inside"

I have chosen to write about fear as a theme in "Letters from the
inside". "Letters from the inside" is a book written by  John Marsden.
It is about two penpals, Tracey and Mandy. They
are writing to each other during a year and the reader follows them when
they get to know
each other better and better. In her first letters Tracey writes about
the perfect live she is living in Australia. She has got everything: a
nice family, a great boyfriend and even a horse. Mandy on the other hand
seems to live an ordinary life in New York. Her parents work a lot and
she does not get along well with her brother Steve.
     After a couple of months Mandy meets a girl from the school Tracy
says that she goes to,
Prescott High. But the girl has never heard of Tracy and Mandy starts to
wonder. Why is
She not known at Prescott High, and why does she use a post-office box
instead of her home
address? After a difficult time for them both Tracy tells the truth. She
is in Garret. Wich is a
prison for juvenile delinquents. She never tells Mandy why she is in
there but the girls get
very close to each other. In the end of the book Mandy suddenly stops
writing. The reader never founds out why and the book ends with Tracy
explaining that she is being transferred from the prisonblock for the
worst criminals (A-block) to a block for people with good behavior. But
she still does not know how to manage without Mandys letters.





The fear of Mandy

 Mandy is afraid of a couple of things. Most of all it seems to be about
her big brother Steve.
Steve has got some serious problems and has gotten on the wrong track in
life. He is failing in
school, fighting with his family and spends most of his time cleaning of
two old guns that
his grandfather left him. Mandy and Steve have been fighting with each
other many times but now he has begun to hit her. Mandy describes him
like this:
"Steve is a violent guy, seriously violent. But the worst thing is that
noone seems to realize how bad he is. When Steve gets mad - he goes
cold. His face goes blank, his eyes dead and his voice is like a robots.
He has beaten me up some times. I get so scared when I know the two of
us are going to be home alone."

Of course Mandy has got all the usual fears a teenage girl always has,
worrying about her looks, school and if the relasionship with her new
boyfriend is going to work out. But now Tracey has brought her into
another world. A world of violence and anger. Mandy is therefore a
little afraid  of Tracey. What if Tracey suddenly showed up on her
doorstep demanding her to help her to get away from the police?







Tracey's fears

I think Tracey is afraid of a lot of things. She is in this horrible
place and now she has suddenly found this wonderful friend through some
letters. Traceys biggest fear outthrough the book is to loose Mandy.
Either if Mandy would get tired of writing to her or if she told the
whole truth and Mandy would be scared or loose the respect for her. This
makes the end of the book so terrible. When Mandy stops writing Tracey
gets really worried and probably pretty ill too.
     Tracey has got a very hard attitude and is the leader of the girls
in A-block. When she starts writing to Mandy her soft side starting to
show. Both in her letters but also in Garret. In the beginning of the
book she is very scared to loose thise strong position of hers. This
makes her do things she really does not want to do. Like when she won
the competition with her essey people were starting to think she was
going soft and Tracy beat up a girl to prove the opposite. But in the
end of the book Tracey probably gets inspired of Mandy and starts to
ignore the superficial and violent life in Garret. When Tracey is ill
she gets send to the medical unit. From there she write several letter
sounding more happy than before. She really likes it there, helps the
nurses and such things.  Mandy really gets important to Tracey. She
depends on her to help her and mandy really tries to do that. Until she
suddenly stops writing. Here a bit from one of the letters in the end
that touched me most. It really shows how true friendships between two
girls can be:
"Mandy, the second worst thing in the world would be if you decided to
stop writing to me. But the worst thing would be if anything had
happened to you! I do not know if I could stand it if you did not want
to write anymore, but I know I could not stand if you had had an
terrible accident or something like that!!!"