Why Does Tommo Believe He Lives in Charlies Glow?

Over the past month I have been reading and studying the book private peaceful by Michael morpurgo. It’s a story about a young boy called Tommo who has an older brother Charlie a friend big Joe and their mother. Tommo looks up to Charlie, they always look out for each other. Tommo found a best friend at school called molly and both Charlie and Tommo soon fell in love with her. Later on in the book molly gives birth to a baby girl whose father is Charlie and Tommo wishes to let out a secret that has been kept since his father sadly passed away. In my essay I will be writing about how Tommo and Charlie’s relationships change during the story. Firstly I am going to concentrate about Charlie and tommos relationship whilst they were at school. Tommo looks up to Charlie because Charlie always looks out for Tommo one example of this is when they were in the school yard Tommo got in a fight and Charlie took over and for his punishment him and jimmy pearsons got the cane jimmy kept crying “Ow, sir! Ow, sir! Ow. Sir!” but when it was chalies turn all we hear “are the whacks, and then the silences between”… this is one of the reasons why I have “the bravest brother in the world.”

When Tommo first met molly he and molly had a very strong relationship and they still did when Charlie got friendly with her but as molly was two years older than him and Charlie was older by three “they always ran faster than i did.” And sometimes I felt like “they wanted to be without me… I was feeling miserable and abandoned” soon this all got worse when Tommo finds out Charlie was in a relationship with molly. “I was so filled with anger and resentment towards him that I never wanted to speak to him again, nor to molly come to that.” Tommo by now is probably thinking what would Charlie so that to me? The one lad I look up to I cannot trust anymore he knows I love molly so why did he do this? When Tommo and Charlie both went to war they soon got closer and closer. Tommo got tired easily his “head was swimming. I was staggering now, not running and barley able to keep upright. My back was on fire with pain.” Of course as older brothers do Charlie started screaming at Charlie and started saying things like leave Tommo alone he can’t march with a rifle over his head he can barely walk. Charlie got the punishment he was under arrest.

When Tommo marched away he sang quietly to himself “what a friend I have in Charlie.” At the end of the novel Charlie was going to go get shot by the firing squad for cowardness as he refused to go to the trenches with everyone else because his brother hurt himself. Tommo was singing oranges and lemons with Charlie as he got shot. As they left that night they all said the same thing “bye Charlie.” He will be sadly missed by everyone. Tommo wants to live in Charlie’s glow rather than his shadow because a shadow follows you around everywhere and he doesn’t want to be known as the boy whos only friend is his older brother he wants to be like Charlie though he wants people to look up to him like he did to Charlie. Overall I think Tommo and Charlie have a strong relationship and truly love each other no matter what happens. They started off loving each other and that’s how it ended. Personally I think it’s true that Charlie lives in Charlie’s glow because now he’s the one who made a promise to Charlie to look after molly, big Joe and mum so they will look up to him like everyone did to Charlie.