The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley is a novel that covers at least several major society flaws of the twentieth century. This is the story about morality and inner bounds that protect us - no matter how surprisingly it might sound - from us.
Leo Colston is just an ordinary boy whose parents don’t have enough money to send him to school, but luckily for the boy, his mother sells the books his father has been collecting for many years and receives a pretty big sum of money which allows her to afford the school. The first thing the boy learns there is that some children enjoy bragging about their families’ money and numerous life opportunities that await them. Their coexistence could be more tolerable if they wouldn’t pick on Leo. Being perfectly aware of the fact that there is no one who can help him - his mother is too poor and the school administration is not going to expel pupils whose parents’ social status might cause all of them a lot of troubles -, Leo comes up with the idea of hexing his enemies. Of course, these are just silly attempts to protect himself, but there is nothing more he can do. Escapism becomes his solution. When he befriends Marcus, Leo is surprised to learn that there are rich people who don’t use that fact to humiliate others.
Unlike her brother, Marian doesn’t see a friend in Leo, but she is smart enough to understand that she can use his eagerness to please childlike devotion for her own benefit. That is how Leo becomes a go-between. In the beginning the boy is too naive to be able to comprehend that he allows to drag himself into a web of lies.
The epilogue of the novel is about taking responsibility for your own actions. Leo will be using his memory lapse as a secret room where he can hide from the harsh reality in which he is neither guilty nor blameless. He is just a person who can make a mistake. When he puts up with the idea of him being a participant in that terrible tragedy that took Ted’s life away, he manages to forgive himself. Unlike Marian, he liberates himself from the illusions.
