To grow up during the years when there was war and depression would have been hard, but to have on top of this, all the cultural expectations of the time, and an abusive father, would have been too terrible to tell for most.

George Johnston portrays this time in his novel ‘My Brother Jack’, through the eyes of Davy Meredith, a young boy, (who in turn is portrayed unmistakably as a young Johnston), who develops into a young man. The cultural influences of this era shaped the men that both the young boy and his older brother, Jack, developed into.

The Meredith household described just after the war is one of the main influences that would affect the two boys later in their lives. It is a household where war is depicted everywhere; from the memorabilia kept in the bottom drawer of a wardrobe, to the hallway where gas masks, medical supplies and artificial limbs were stored like trophies, and the bodies of the derelict soldiers lying in all the rooms, like some hospital. These memories would play on both boys’ memories for the rest of their lives.

Davy stays with basically three jobs throughout the book, whereas Jack is influenced by the time, and therefore moves from job to job, until he gets a job in the Wimmera district. Davy describes this as ‘ an important ratchet in Jack's destiny, it was that job in the Wimmera that closed the door upon his youth forever and that gave him the woman who was to become his wife.(Pg 107)’

Jack meets ‘ a Sheila called Sheila’ (Pg 49), during his time in the Wimmera, and she comes down with a case of double pneumonia, so Jack brings her to 'Avalon', the family home to rest a while. Jack wants to marry Sheila, and does eventually, but not before his father has a go at him. Sheila is a Roman Catholic, and Jack is a Protestant. In that time, Catholics and Protestants don’t get involved. Jack and Davy’s father uses this as his main argument to keep Sheila out of the family, but this only makes Jack want to defy him more. The view of the father was culturally influenced, but Jack's view was mixed. He was culturally influenced, but he wanted to stand up to his father, so he pretended he didn’t care about societies standards.

Both boys were culturally influenced or defied cultural influences throughout their adolescence, and this made them the men they were- ‘ Jack the tough, honest battler’ (Blurb), and David, who ‘ rises in his successful career as a journalist and War correspondent.’(Blurb) Societies’ standards that guided the two boys into their adult lives would probably determine the way they later treated their children and grandchildren, an

Some topics in this essay:
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