Analysis Of Louise Erdrich's Short Story 'The Big Cat'

Native American culture has been nearly destroyed and almost completely forgotten because of the lack of knowledge and empathy American has for the race, but authors like Louise Erdrich are the voice of the silent, forgotten culture. The short story The Big Cat, written by Louise Erdrich, tells a story of a Elida, a woman whose behavior resembles one of a cat’s behavior. In the beginning of the story she and her husband divorced, but throughout the story she preyed on her husband like a cat would do a mouse, to get her husband to return to her. Oddly enough, even though the couple reunited, the author used to unique characterization and vivid imagery to make the ending have a sad, ire tone. Thought this short story has nothing to do with Native

“How dark was my narrative! Why had Elinda killed me of, instead of letting me rescue the dogs at the end? This downward trajectory gave me a moral chill.” After watching the video collage his wife put together for him, the narrator should have expressed a sense of happiness, but his diction inferred he was apprehensive. The sequence of questions is used by the author to transform the atmosphere of the passage from an ideal happy ending to one of grief and stress. The author manipulates diction so well in the story, it leave the reader wondering if they should be sad or content with the ending. The author uses symbolism in the line “I destroyed the movies… no one would never have the patience to assemble my life glimpse by glimpse again.” This line is symbolic for him throwing away a relationship that he should have never returned to. The narrator is experiencing Spontaneous recovery, which is a phenomenon of learning and memory where you miss something that you originally got ridge of, but once you get it back, you realize why you got ridge of it to begin with. Without the readers use of symbolism and diction the story would have been shaped and perceived