Cal

             Throughout This essay I am going to be writing about the feelings of Cal through Love and Fear and the effects this has on his everyday life, the novel Cal is written by Bernard MacLaverty.
             Cal is about a young man named Cal who is a catholic living in a protestant community. The novel shows the dangers of his everyday life. He also has had work with an Irish Republican terrorist group who fight against groups of Protestants such as the UVF and other protest and Northern Irish groups. The only way he can escape this, is his love for Marcella. A librarian who has Italian backgrounds the only thing stopping the two of them being together is the fact that Cal was involved in the shooting of Marcella's husband, It is this guilt which Cal has that keeps them apart he wants to tell her but he is afraid that she will not want to carry on their friendship any longer. In the end Cal is caught for what he has done to Marcella's husband and put in jail. Cal has many things to be afraid of. One of the first is the fear of walking home knowing that someone may attack him. "Don't Fuss I"m O.K." Cal still had a tremor in his voice. This shows how scared he is even to be walking about in his own area.
             Another form of fear Cal experiences is when they are going to rob the off-licence. "Where the fuck was Crilly? Was he choosing wine?" This tells us how afraid Cal is of being caught and the consequences.
             One more of Cal's fears is the Ulstermen and their death threats especially when he got one that said, "Get out you fenyan scum or we"ll burn you out. This is your second warning there will be no other." His fear kicks in after a couple of minutes when he says to himself "Its people like these who make my skin crawl." They were putting covers in the bath to make sure they were ready incase they were petrol bombed, This shows Cal's fear is rising now that the Ulstermen were sending death threats.
             One of Cal's greatest fear in the book is the British Army and if they would ever catch him for what he done to Marcella's husband Robert this is shown when they finally catch him in the end and he just stands there ready to be taking away.