The Story of Tom Brennan by J.C Burke explores multiple Human Experiences that help to connect the audience to the novel. Burke uses human experiences so that the readers can imagine themselves as the characters that are experiencing the same experiences that they have throughout their lives. The experiences that Burke chooses to display in this text can be seen as a flow-on effect from each other.
In the novel, Burke portrays the human experience of anger. Anger plays an influential role in the storyline of the novel. The people of Mumbilli display their anger through the way they react and treat the Brennan family after the incident that involved Daniel Brennan. The Brennans deal with the issue by moving away “past the ugly words that told us we were no longer wanted”. Daniel also displays anger on the night of the incident which in turn leads to the human experience of dealing with the loss of someone.
Burke uses the experience of dealing with the loss of someone to create an emotional connection to the audience. Burke uses two different situations to demonstrate the experience. The first situation is that of the parents losing their children in the crash. They blame Daniel for the situation that they had to endure and try to make him be punished and believe that they “should lock him up and throw away the key”. This then leads to the next situation of Daniels family losing him after he is incarcerated. Everyone in the family deals with it differently from Tom wanting to talk about it whereas his sister has no similar experience and says to “tell someone who cares, Tom”. Burke uses the experience of losing someone to relate it to the experience of change.
Change plays a major role in the development of the characters throughout the novel. Tom Brennan is the character where change is looked at the closest. Burke displays Tom as someone who doesn't like change as he liked what was normal such as his comment of “Mumbilli only had a Kentucky Fried, but it was a top one” which shows that he is not interested in this new place and just wanted things to go back to how they used to be. Although as Tom begins to get back into his footy and finds someone to be with he realized that things aren't so bad and that ‘Tom Brennan came back, forever.’ This experience of change rolls into another experience. Happiness.
Happiness in this novel is not shown extensively throughout the novel but towards the end, it is a major thing for Tom. Tom finds his happiness through things becoming normal again for him and his family such as him beginning training again and becoming closer with his mother after she was very distant from the rest of the family which upset Tom as he wanted to see her but “she didn't see me. How could she under all those covers?”Christie who becomes very close to Tom is the major reason for his happiness. Ever since they first met Tom really liked her and once he found that he could trust her that built up his feelings even more and eventually at the end of the novel they “swam and loved each other”.
In summary, The Story of Tom Brennan by J.C Burke, portrays the human experiences of anger, loss, change, and happiness to help connect the audience to the novel on both an imaginative and emotional level. The experiences flow on from each other to show that each experience can impact and influence the existence of another and to show big and little things can make a major difference in a person's life.