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Anthony stands tilting the camera a few millimetres back and forth, mesmerised, as the group arranges itself before him. The pixellated image oscillates, scanning and reading the shifts of light and shade. One moment he sees his sister, overweight and worn and dowdy in her Target outfit, frumpy beside the immaculate blonde Marie, who outshines them all. The next he sees Margaret, kind and comfortable, touching Ian’s arm and smiling warmly, with Marie pale and cold and stick-thin, face grimaced into a close-mouthed rictus. Back and forth the shimmering image goes; how she sees them and how they see her, this life and that life, with Anthony in the middle, trying to hold the camera steady and depress the button for autofocus at the same moment.

Explanation and Analysis:

After Christmas lunch, Anthony looks at his family through his digital camera’s viewfinder. He notices that from one angle, Marie looks “immaculate,” but from another she looks “pale and cold and stick-thin.” Similarly, Margaret looks “overweig...

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Original

Romeo

(aside) She speaks.
O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white, upturnèd, wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art though Romeo?
Deny they father and refuse they name.
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Modern

Romeo

(to himself) She speaks. Speak again, bright angel! For tonight you are as glorious, there up above me, as a winged messenger of heaven who makes mortals fall onto their backs to gaze up with awestruck eyes as he strides across the lazy clouds and sails through the air.

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! Why must you be Romeo? Deny your father and give up your name. Or, if you won’t change your name, just swear your love to me and I’ll give up being a Capulet.

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