Previous
Raelene
The narrator of “Big World” is the best friend of Biggie Botson. Originally from the city, he moved to Angelus when his parents were assigned to teach at the school there. After his father later ran off, the narrator stayed on living with his mother. New to Angelus, the narrator was viciously bullied by Tony Macoli until Biggie intervened, initiating their friendship. Out of gratitude, the narrator began to do all of Biggie’s schoolwork for him, and they developed a codependent relationship, which set them both up for academic failure. While Biggie never expected much else, the narrator, who is both desperate to escape Angelus and more intellectually inclined than he lets on, was deeply disappointed by his exam results, even to the point of considering suicide. Their friendship also limits the narrator’s love life, as his loyalty to Biggie compromises his budding relationship with Briony Nevis. After a few months of working in the meatworks, the narrator convinces Biggie to leave town with him. Ultimately, however, he returns to Angelus to retake his exams, after the van he and Biggie purchased breaks down in the desert and Biggie and Meg subsequently abandon him. Apparently, the exams go well, and the narrator grows up to have a family of his own. After Biggie’s tragic early death, the narrator reads Robert Louis Stevenson at Biggie’s funeral.
The Narrator of “Big World” Quotes in The Turning
The The Turning quotes below are all either spoken by The Narrator of “Big World” or refer to The Narrator of “Big World”. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Big World Quotes
After five years of high school the final November arrives and leaves as suddenly as a spring storm. Exams. Graduation. Huge beach parties. Biggie and me, we’re feverish with anticipation; we steel ourselves for a season of pandemonium. But after the initial celebrations, nothing really happens, not even summer itself. Week after week an endless drizzle wafts in from the sea. It beads in our hair and hangs from the tips of our noses while we trudge around town in the vain hope of scaring up some action. The southern sky presses down and the beaches and bays turn the colour of dirty tin. Somehow our crappy Saturday job at the meatworks becomes full-time and then Christmas comes and so do the dreaded exam results. The news is not good.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Right then I can’t imagine and end to the quiet. The horizon fades. Everything looks impossibly far off. In two hours I’ll hear Biggie and Meg in his sleeping bag and she’ll cry out like a bird and become so beautiful, so desirable in the total dark that I’ll begin to cry. In a week Biggie and Meg will blow me off in Broome and I’ll be on the bus south for a second chance at the exams. In a year Biggie will be dead in a mining accident in the Pilbara and I’ll be reading Robert Louis Stevenson at his funeral while his relatives shuffle and mutter with contempt. Meg won’t show. I’ll grow up and have a family of my own and see Briony Nevis, tired and lined in a supermarket queue, and wonder what all the fuss was about. And one night I’ll turn on the TV to discover the fact that Tony Macoli, the little man with the nose that could sniff round corners, is Australia’s richest merchant banker. All of it is unimaginable.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Turning LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
The Narrator of “Big World” Character Timeline in The Turning
The timeline below shows where the character The Narrator of “Big World” appears in The Turning. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Big World
...comes and goes. Despite the celebrations, including “huge beach parties,” the transition is disorienting for the narrator of “Big World ” and his friend Biggie. The excitement quickly settles into boredom, as gray, rainy weather...
(full context)
While Biggie and the narrator of “Big World ” have been saving up together for a car, the narrator dreams of running away...
(full context)
As they drive, the narrator of “Big World ” reflects on his relationship with Biggie, who is his best friend despite the deep...
(full context)
Still moving north, the narrator of “Big World ” considers the secrets he and Biggie keep from each other, their incompatible hopes and...
(full context)
In a flashback, the narrator of “Big World ” explains how he and Biggie became friends. New to town at the beginning of...
(full context)
Despite their closeness, the narrator of “Big World ’s” friendship with Biggie has foreclosed other relationships, particularly with girls. The narrator felt he...
(full context)
The narrator of “Big World ” and Biggie finally stop for gas and to use the phone; while the narrator...
(full context)
...a spliff (a marijuana cigarette), talking, and singing in the back of the car, as the narrator of “Big World ” grows increasingly frustrated. Slowly, the narrator begins to understand Meg’s appeal for Biggie: for...
(full context)
The narrator of “Big World ” cannot picture a spatial or temporal end to the quiet, endless waiting, or the...
(full context)
