Half Bad

“The trick is to not mind. Not mind about it hurting, not mind about anything. The trick of not minding is key; it’s the only trick in town. Only this is not a town; it’s a cage beside a cottage, surrounded by a load of hills and trees and sky. It’s a one-trick cage.”

The novel opens with these words, giving the reader a sense that the speaker is trapped in an impossible situation. Further, the speaker’s solution suggests absolute passivity. This quote conveys the sense of complete powerlessness to change the situation. In a larger sense, Nathan’s life until age 17 is one giant cage. The first step to freedom is learning how to mind his confinement.

“And so the trick doesn’t work. It doesn’t work, and you do mind; you mind about it all. You don’t want to be back in that cage, and you don’t want the trick anymore. You don’t want any of it anymore.”

This quote is a rejection of the first trick, uttered many chapters later. Despite Nathan’s early comment that being caged doesn’t bother him, he spends much of his time plotting his escape. The effort puts him in a worse position than if he hadn’t tried at all. However, his frustration at being trapped constitutes a grim sort of progress.

“I do have a secret, though. A secret so dark, so hopeless, so absurd that I can never share it with anyone. It is a secret story that I tell myself when I’m in bed at night. My father is not evil at all; he is powerful and strong. And he cares about me...he loves me.”

Nathan’s language in this quote is telling. He uses words like “dark,” “hopeless,” and “absurd” to describe his belief that Marcus loves him. He makes this statement while still a child and after being subjected to indoctrination from Fairborns designed to teach him how little he matters to his father. Ironically, by the end of the book, Nathan’s fantasy is realized.