Nick Earl's novel 48 Shades Of Brown raises a variety of themes and issues and as the novel progresses begins to force its own values and attitudes onto its readers. The text discusses such issues as the journey from a boyhood to manhood, the pressures of school, sexuality and coping with independence. At the same time influencing the reader's attitudes and values on being yourself and sexuality. The story is constructed around Dan a 16 yr old male who is forced to live with is aunt Jacq and her roommate Naomi when is parents move to Geneva. The book explores Dan's attempts to get Naomi, while dealing with school, his new surroundings and his own inadequacies. The way in which some of these values and attitudes are forced upon readers is quite predictably due to the pre-existing values and attitudes of society and the political correctness required. All of this is done using such techniques as characterization, point of view, language, tone, symbolism, dialogue and setting

The main reason Dan feels like he doesn't fit in is due to his lack of independence, or his lack of experience at being independent. His lack of independence can be attributed to his mother who is controlling and really does more than she should for Dan. " Can I tell her it's not how I want it, my mothers over involved in the organising of my clothes?" " Back in the country ten minutes and already I'm fighting of the urge to vomit and missing my mothers attention to detail" are two ways in which Dan talks about his mother. Due to this Dan wasn't real big on doing things for himself and this is obvious when Dan has to do his own washing "You've never done laundry before, have you?

Not big on chores are we?" This encouragers readers to become a bit more independent by showing them certain examples of what may happen if they don't.

School is of the utmost importance to Dan as he states within the book "the work of eleven low risk school years has a chance of coming unstuck with all this change". But the problem is with the extreme change of his surroundings Dan finds the pressures of school that much tougher. Dan is used to his mums help especially when it comes to school, as she was once a schoolteacher. The fact that she is no longer around in his most important yr of school is a significant one to Dan "why couldn't they have gone overseas when I was six instead of sixteen". Also the fact that Dan is forever studying and stressing over school encourages the predictable values and attitudes that school is important and should be taken seriously. Although predictable it is still valid.

he story is based on a sort of fish out of water concept, as Dan is forced to live in an environment he is obviously not used to. This situation is made obvious and intensified throughout the novel with statements such as " The carpet for a start.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Shades Brown, Jacq Naomi, Due Dan, Dan Naomi, , values attitudes, Nick Earl's, pressures school, list maker, characterization view language, tone symbolism dialogue, techniques characterization view, view language tone, view language, using techniques, forced live, coping independence, describe jacq, characterization view, fit due, language tone symbolism,
Approximate Word count = 1243
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)