Archie Weller's Short Story 'Herbie'

Furthermore, Downey’s apt use of pathos, or emotional appeals, draws readers in and triggers an emotional response in them, keeping them engaged for the duration of the essay. To expand, he uses blunt phrases like, “permanent loss” (445) and “distant, angry aliens, lacking emotional bonds” (446) to create a severe impact on readers. Also, stirring examples of “descent into alcohol, drugs, and prostitution” (445) and “children committing suicide” (446) illustrate for readers the acute level of damage and suffering that Aboriginal victims experienced. Downey’s use of evocative and graphic imagery in his recounts of “residential schools” (446) and the physical, “emotional and sexual abuse” (447) that specific victims endured elucidates the turmoil and anguish felt by victims of the ‘Sixties Scoop’ in general. As such, this technique fully immerses readers in his essay. Downey creates both a sense of compassion and guilt in his readers through his mention of children who were “enslaved,

Internalized oppression is just one factor that contributes to the inescapability of intergenerational trauma. Alexie uses figurative language to demonstrate that the cycle of oppression is further perpetuated by the concept of racial inferiority, poverty, and failure to achieve an education in his short story “The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore”. The main character, Victor, sits on the porch with his friend Adrian as they reminisce their past and hope for others futures. Victor claims that “Indians [could] easily survive the big stuff... It’s the small things that hurt the most. The white waitress who wouldn’t take an order, Tonto, the Washington Redskins” (49).

Smasher represents the fictionalized version of a historical truth, that many colonisers were violent against the Indigenous people. However, Grenville also shows the other side of the debate, using the characters of Thomas Blackwood and Dick Thornhill. Her black arm band characters show the understanding and grief of what the colonisers were doing to the Aboriginals. Blackwood, a sympathetic character towards the Aboriginals, fathered a child to one and living amongst them, learning their language “Blackwood answered her, and at first Thornhill thought that he was blurring the words together and swallowing them in his usual way. It took him a moment to realise that Blackwood was speaking in her own tongue” (Grenville 216). While Dick’s childhood revolves around the interactions with the local Indigenous children “he had seen Dick there on a spit of sand, playing with the native children, all bony legs and skinny arms shiny like insects, running in and out of the water. Dick was stripped off as they were, to nothing but skin. His was white and theirs was black, but shining in the sun and glittering with river-water it was hard to tell the difference”

Adding on to foreshadowing, the writer also uses irony in the story. The irony in the story adds more interest into the story, because the reader wants to find out if the characters ever find the truth. In “The Interlopers” both of the characters have no idea that wolves are going to kill them. They believe it is just their men and they don’t suspect a thing. “‘They are making all the speed they can, brave lads,’ said Ulrich gladly…. ‘Who are they,’ asked George quickly, straining his eyes to see what the other would have gladly not have seen ‘Wolves.’”(7). When they find this out it makes the story more interesting. The reader is now intrigued because the unexpected happened.

In this chapter, we are led through Victor's personal experience throughout his school education, from first grade to twelfth grade. Victor was bullied from a very young age. Teased for his dorkish appearance, constantly tripped and pushed into the snow. “I was always falling down; my Indian name was Junior Falls Down. Sometimes it was Bloody Nose or Steal-His-Lunch.”[p.172] By the second grade, Victor was continuously bullied at school. No longer only by his classmates, instead now his teacher, Mrs. Betty Towle joined in on the cruelty towards Victor. She would make him stand eagle-armed for fifteen minutes. She would mock and tease her student for being a Native American. By the fourth grade, Victor had a teacher whom supported him. Mr. Schulter

Her sentence lengths also work to keep a readers interest, by using longer ones more often the shorter ones, which happens to be some of the most important lines in terms of explaining where the story is going, stand out more. One of these lines include “But then, one day, it ended,” which is the final line of the second story she tells, hooking the reader and making them wonder what it was that happens after the lightheartedness she opened with.

Racial tensions still have a large impact on modern society that need to be changed so that all are considered equal. Wilson starts by pointing out the racial inadequacies in society using the scene where Lymon and Boy Willie go to collect their wood, “Me [Lymon] and Boy Willie got away but the sheriff got us. Say we was stealing wood. They shot me in my stomach” (Wilson 37). The police assume because the men are black that they are stealing the wood. Discrimination, in the end, is the long build up of misunderstandings between people who at first glance seem to be unsimilar. This is shown by the incident with the wood. The police believe that Boy Willie and Lymon are stealing the wood, even though they were given permission to take some of the wood for themselves. By assuming that they are thieves, they draw a line between blacks and whites. They then spread this assumption to others who conclude the same thing which further strengthens the division. This leads to entire populations hating other populations from one misunderstanding. Hatred carries influence, and hatred is a powerful tool that Wilson shows that the whites dominate. For example, “And he go and fix it with the law that them is his berries.

In Porcupines and China Dolls , Robert Arthur Alexie writes of hard hitting, serious issues that Aboriginal communities across Canada face but that are rarely spoken of. Alexie writes with blunt honestly aimed at an older audience who understand the frank discussions of alcoholism, domestic violence and sex, both consensual and not and the consequences they have on both individuals and the community. While the pace lags at the beginning, it does successfully build the bleak world of the novel and the people who reside in it. Hard hitting topics, some of which are more fleshed out than others by the end, will leave the reader thinking and wondering about the everyday challenges the victims of residential schools face.

He is stereotyped as a thief and he is punished. The reader is faced with the boy 's fear of having failed his family, “knowing that everyone at home wanted me to go to school” (Rivera, p.94) and become educated because they feel “that if someday there 's an opportunity, maybe they 'll give it to us."(Rivera p.97) Rivera establishes through the boy 's fear of punishment that the entirety of the boy 's relations are in support of him attending school, regardless of the beliefs of the white administrators. The boy 's behavior reflects the sacrifices his family makes in pushing him to go to school rather than having him help in the fields. So the cycle continues because “its always the same in these schools up in the north”. The children work instead of attending school, they miss vital opportunities to better themselves, and so they end up with jobs that rival those of their parents, low-wage and demanding. Then, when it comes to their children, the cycle will just go on and on because they think “it 's better staying out here on the ranch, here in the quiet of this knoll, with its chicken coops, or out in the fields where you at least feel more free, more at ease.”

At the beginning of Alexie’s life teachers and classmates demonstrate the racism. Sherman Alexie’s classmates are the first example of racism, with racist nicknames and bullying that start the chain of hardship in his life. Alexie narrates, “I was always falling down; my Indian name was Junior Falls Down. Sometimes it was Bloody Nose or Steal-His-Lunch” (Alexie 3). This quote is important because it conveys the racism that Alexie’s see in the early parts of his life with racist nicknames and the bullying that is brought. One way that this quote is racist is that Alexie refers to these nicknames as “Indian names”. It also depicts the bullying that Alexie endured with getting his lunch stolen, getting bloody noses, and falling down. Although this is a minor plot point to the story, this sets the reader up for the more and more detailed hardships that racism brings. Another example of racism in Sherman Alexie’s life is his teacher who bullies him for no reason. She makes him stay in for recess, hold books for fifteen minutes, and force him to cut his braids, and on top of all that she uses a negative connotation when describing

In considering the overarching interpretation regarding depictions of race throughout the novella, this specific excerpt is salient in both its characterization of the tribe and the racial commentary that can be derived as a result. Despite the previous passage’s depiction of the Piccaninny through diction that signifies subordination, they are comparatively described here in a violent and “masculine” manner that suggests a form of power. In this then, one must revisit the previously posed inquiry: is the narrator reproducing the degrading racial hierarchy that labels “the other” as inferior, or are they persuading the reader to question it? Phraseology such as “diabolical cunning” to describe their plans not only contradicts the notion that they are a rudimentary people, it also encourages a questioning of the connotations of “savagery” as it is used throughout the work (174). However, this is not to argue that the passage is any less problematic in its presentation. While certain aspects of the word choice may indicate power, the “redskins” are still described in a manner that strips them of their humanity. The use of “phlegmatic” as an adjective to portray the manner in which they “should deal pale death” suggests that they are inhumane and emotionless “creatures” (174). Furthermore, the narrator states that they dream of the

When he finally gets the life he aspired for, he creates what he for years hated, a class system, with the immigrants up top and the indigenous at the bottom. For years he despised how he was frowned upon and treated like dirt by those of a higher class then him. Yet he is doing this exact thing to those below him, the aboriginals. He goes as far as even hunting them down with a posse. The novel shows how easy it is for

Kate Grenville’s characterisation of Smasher, is one of great prejudice to the Aboriginal people. Smasher, a cold hearted man with profound rivalry for the Aboriginals, states to have no problem ‘teaching a lesson to any black arse who sets foot on [his] land’. He kills, kidnaps and sexually abuses Aboriginal women and children. Readers infer Smasher’s horrid nature is due to oblivion and a lack of understanding of the Aboriginal people. Smasher believes the natives to be nothing but savages, a common opinion shared amongst the rest of the white settlement. This fervour of superiority was shared by a vast majority of the white settlement. This is demonstrated when Smasher begins to demand that the Aboriginals should be rid of after the death his friend, even though to double standards - Smasher and his friend were responsible for these actions that took place: ‘We’ll poison em, with the green stuff’. Moreover, The double standards that were set in place was due to this supposed white dominance, due to the belief that the blacks life had little to no meaning at all compared to a white's: ’They ain’t worth nothin’. Readers were lead to believe by this that the settlers had no tolerance or patience for the aboriginals in turn refusing to learn to respect

Morrison illustrates both the way of thinking behind racism as well as the effects these perceptions and slavery itself had on black americans. For example when she says “...they clipped him, Paul D. First his shotgun then his thoughts, for Schoolteacher didn’t take advice from negroes.” it shows the fact that Schoolteacher does not think of them as people, he thinks of them as livestock. He even goes so far as to compare Sethe to a horse saying that the only reason she had run was because they had beaten her too severely and spooked her stating matter of factly “... now she’d gone wild, due to the mishandling of the nephew who’d overbeat her and made her cut and run.” (Morrison 176) the same way a horse would, he also doesn’t comprehend why she would kill her children simply because they whipped her, this is of course not why she does it, doing it instead to protect them from a fate she saw as worse than death. The attitude of Schoolteacher shows the reader the way of thinking behind racism and slavery. The instances of racism found in this text illuminate not only the mind set of slavery but also the desperation it caused and the fact that someone who hadn’t gone through such a traumatic experience would be unable to understand how far it could push someone and what it could make them

The typical narrative is mostly famous for the intense powerful and anticipating climax it uniquely adopts. Readers are mostly attracted to those intense moments which a story holds. Yet, no matter how monotonous and confusing Carver’s stories are without their climaxes they always seem to keep the audience going. This method of keeping his stories on the same beat allows Carver to capture a dirty and dark realism of what life really is. His stories are so real that they make people feel uncomfortably hooked to them. This lack of climax is perfectly illustrated in Carver’s “Why Don’t You Dance?” since literally nothing happens during the progress of the events of the story. The young couple goes to a yard sale, drink beer with the owner, and listen to old records, dance and then the story cuts to the girl trying to tell everyone what had happened but in vain. The story walks on the same empty rhythm from beginning to end. This monotony is mostly present in the way Carver keeps repeating the action word “said” in all the dialogues like in this conversation between the girl and the man, “‘Those people over there, they’re watching’, she said. ‘It’s okay’, the man said. ‘It’s my place’, he said…” (Carver, 1981). And the dialogue keeps going on with that tone. Another example of this lack of climax is in “So Much Water So Close to Home” which is roughly based on a woman’s thoughts towards her husband who she suspects of murder. The whole story just goes on about her mind’s venture through emotions and flashbacks and conclusions. The story then ends with her giving up all those thoughts which made up the whole story and accepting her husband’s offer to sleep together before their son comes home. This lack of climax, which allows the reader to stay