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The Narrator of “Big World”
Biggie Botson is the best friend of the narrator of “Big World.” A large, somewhat slow-witted but extremely loyal young man, Biggie is a “country boy” who has lived in Angelus his whole life. Biggie and the narrator work together as full-time employees of the meatworks after they both fail their exams. While the failure affects Biggie less than it affects the narrator, he too is surprisingly hurt, as the narrator doing all his schoolwork for him unrealistically raised his expectations that he would pass. Biggie’s decision to run away from Angelus is both less existential and more reckless than the narrator’s; his violent, abusive father is certain to beat him if he returns. In meeting Meg, Biggie finally finds someone he feels smarter than, prompting a brief affair in which they abandon the narrator. Biggie never returns to Angelus, but he does not escape a life of dangerous manual labor; he will later die in a mining accident, and the narrator will read Robert Louis Stevenson at his funeral.
Biggie Quotes in The Turning
The The Turning quotes below are all either spoken by Biggie or refer to Biggie. 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.
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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.
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Get the entire The Turning LitChart as a printable PDF.
Biggie Quotes in The Turning
The The Turning quotes below are all either spoken by Biggie or refer to Biggie. 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:
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:
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Page Number and Citation:
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