Eden Robinson and Guy Vanderhaeghe both present stories about young boys faced with life altering choices in “Traplines” and “The Watcher,” respectively. Charlie tells the surface story of “The Watcher”, while readers get a sense of the deep story in his thoughts about the dysfunctional home he resides in. “Traplines” is presented by Will, although readers get some sense of the deep story, the narrator uses short and simple sentences, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation about what truly is happening in the story. While on the surface “Traplines” and “The Watcher” are both coming of age stories about a young boy faced with a tough decision, the narrators each go through deeper stages of their story in different ways.
Charlie and Will are both beyond their years, Charlie is only 11 and Will only a teen, yet they have both been exposed to unconventional situations that have caused them both to grow up very quickly. Charlie has been sick his whole life with a bad chest that he inherited from his mother, with no source of entertainment he resorted to people watching in his family home. His mother becomes ill and he is shipped off to an even more dysfunctional home. Having a blunt grandmother, Mrs. Bradley, a mentally ill aunt, Evelyn, and her manipulative boyfriend, Thompson, as his role models, it is no wonder that Charlie is not the brightest of children. Neither Charlie nor Will have promising outlooks on life. With alcoholism, drug use, and abuse present in his home, Will has no source of a mentor in his family. Will, unlike Charlie, does have a place to turn to; when tensions rise he can go to the Smythe’s. The Smythe’s offer Will a warm and loving place for him to escape to, completely unlike his family home.
The surfa...
... middle of paper ...
...tions. Charlie killing Stanley is proof that the surface of “The Watcher” is shown through Charlie’s actions, while the deeper meaning is shown through his thoughts. “Traplines” moves through surface and deep story in a much more discrete way, with readers having to interpret the deeper meaning in their own way, this is proven with the open-endedness of the story without a final decision being stated. Both the surface and underlying stories of “Traplines” and “The Watcher” are very similar, but the stories move between the ways of reading in a very different manner.
Works Cited
Mitchell, Ken, Thomas Chase, and Michael Trussler, eds. The Wascana Anthology of Short
Fiction. Winnipeg: Hignell Printing Limited, 2004. Print.
Robinson, Eden. “Traplines.” Mitchell, Chase, and Trussler. 378-395.
Vanderhaeghe, Guy. “The Watcher.” Mitchel, Chase, and Trussler. 418-443.
The diverse alternation of point of views also provides the story an effective way to reach out to readers and be felt. The characterisation is effectively done and applied as Sam, Grace, and the other supporting characters play individual, crucial roles in the course of the story. All the elements of a typical young adult novel, consisting of a gap-filled relationship between children and parents, emotion-driven teenagers, and a unique conflict that makes the book distinct from fellow novels, combined with the dangerous consequences of the challenges the couple encounter, make the book different from all other of the same genre. The plot unfolds slowly giving readers enough time to adjust and anticipate the heavy conflict when it arises. It has gotten us so hooked but the only thing we could possibly dislike about it was the slow pace of plot. The anticipation was too much to handle and we were practically buzzing and bouncing to know how the story turns out as we read. It builds the anticipation, excitement, thrill, sadness, grief, loss, and longing in such an effective way to entice and hook readers further into the world of Sam and
Ideas- The main idea in this book changes all throughout it. There is one idea that goes throughout the whole story which has a protagonist and an antagonist. Charlie is the protagonist. The antagonist… high school. This develops miraculously throughout the book. Starting off with his first day, to the homecoming game where he meets Sam and Patrick, to his last days of being a freshman. “And I’m Patrick. And this is Sam” pg-19. At first Charlie is worried about high school and his english teacher Bill fixes that quickly. He meets his two new best friends Sam and Patrick at a football game. He then went from there going through tough times. All though ...
The stunted growth and lack of maturity demonstrated by Charlie’s character is also evidenced in the way that he loves. Charlie has difficulty achieving true intimacy with his wife, leading one to wonder if he ever truly loved Linda.
Inevitably, there comes a point in everybody’s life at which they have an experience that completely alters their view of the world. This moment is when one loses his or her innocence, or comes of age, and he or she realizes that they do not live in a utopian Golden Age. Parents are charged with the monumental duty of protecting their children’s innocence, but everybody inescapably grows up. This experience can be anything from an embarrassing situation at school to coming within seconds of death. In the short story “Ambush” by Tim O’Brien, the author tells the true story of his daughter confronting him and asked him if he had ever killed anyone. In an effort to be a good parent and protect the nine-year-old’s innocence, the author does not share with her the story he goes on to tell to the reader. He explains how many years ago, he was serving in the army and was taking a shift guarding his troop’s campsite when all of a sudden, a young man from the opposing army came walking up the trail. Without a second thought, O’Brien killed the boy with a grenade, and he lost his innocence after realizing he had killed a defenseless man without hesitation. Tim O’Brien develops Ambush as a coming of age story through the use of literary devices.
Throughout the story, the different roles and expectations placed on men and women are given the spotlight, and the coming-of-age of two children is depicted in a way that can be related to by many women looking back on their own childhood. The narrator leaves behind her title of “child” and begins to take on a new role as a young, adolescent woman.
Oates creates a vision for the reader of a powerless child in need of mental help and reacting violently to a tragedy. The emotional distress Aaron struggles through his entire life demonstrates how severely his life is im...
Holly Janquell is a runaway. Wendelin Van Draanan creates a twelve year old character in the story, Runaway, that is stubborn and naive enough to think she can live out in the streets alone, until she is eighteen.She has been in five foster homes for the past two years. She is in foster care because her mother dies of heroin overdose. In her current foster home, she is abused, locked in the laundry room for days without food, and gets in even more trouble if she tries to fight back. Ms.Leone, her schoolteacher, could never understand her, and in Holly’s opinion, probably does not care. No one knows what she is going through, because she never opens up to any one. Ms. Leone gives Holly a journal at school one day and tells her to write poetry and express her feelings. Holly is disgusted. But one day when she is sitting in the cold laundry room, and extremely bored, she pulls out the diary, and starts to write. When Holly can take no more of her current foster home, she runs, taking the journal with her. The journal entries in her journal, are all written as if she is talking to Ms.Leone, even though she will probably never see her again. Over the course of her journey, Holly learns to face her past through writing, and discovers a love for poetry. At some point in this book, Holly stops venting to Ms. Leone and starts talking to her, almost like an imaginary friend, and finally opens up to her.
We have all heard the African proverb that says, “It takes a village to raise a child.” The response given by Emma Donoghue’s novel Room, simply states, “If you’ve got a village. But if you don’t, then maybe it just takes two people” (Donoghue 234). For Jack, Room is where he was born and has been raised for the past five years; it is his home and his world. Jack’s “Ma” on the other hand knows that Room is not a home, in fact, it is a prison. Since Ma’s kidnapping, seven years prior, she has survived in the shed of her capturer’s backyard. This novel contains literary elements that are not only crucial to the story but give significance as well. The Point-of-view brings a powerful perspective for the audience, while the setting and atmosphere not only affect the characters but evokes emotion and gives the reader a mental picture of their lives, and the impacting theme along-side with conflict, both internal and external, are shown throughout the novel.
... reader. Throughout the book, Charlie unfolds secrets and truths about the world and the society that he lives in; secrets and truths that cause him to grow up and transition into adulthood. He also makes a life changing decision and rebelled against was he thought was the right thing. This reflects his maturity and bravery throughout the journey he travels that summer. Charlie eyes suddenly become open to the injustice that the town of Corrigan demonstrates. He also comes to face the issue of racism; not only shown towards his best friend Jeffrey and the Lu family but to Jasper Jones as well. He realises the town of Corrigan is unwilling to accept outsiders. Charlie not only finds out things that summer about the people that surround him, but he also finds out who he is personally.
Last but not least, O’Connor confirms that even a short story is a multi-layer compound that on the surface may deter even the most enthusiastic reader, but when handled with more care, it conveys universal truths by means of straightforward or violent situations. She herself wished her message to appeal to the readers who, if careful enough, “(…)will come to see it as something more than an account of a family murdered on the way to Florida.”
Suffering from the death of a close friend, the boy tries to ignore his feelings and jokes on his sister. His friend was a mental patient who threw himself off a building. Being really young and unable to cope with this tragedy, the boy jokes to his sister about the bridge collapsing. "The mention of the suicide and of the bridge collapsing set a depressing tone for the rest of the story" (Baker 170). Arguments about Raisinettes force the father to settle it by saying, "you will both spoil your lunch." As their day continues, their arguments become more serious and present concern for the father who is trying to understand his children better. In complete agreement with Justin Oeltzes’ paper, "A Sad Story," I also feel that this dark foreshadowing of time to come is an indication of the author’s direct intention to write a sad story.
Traplines is a collection of short stories by the Canadian author Eden Robinson. These fictional short stories each have a narrator that is a child who experiences circumstances that most children of their age should not have to face. As the title of these works suggests the children seem to be trapped in their situations one way or another, and they simply have to take what life throws at them. Each of them, however, seem to be trapped by silence in their predicaments. Often the narrators turn to addiction, such as drugs or alcohol, and even suicide and violence as the only possible escapes from their circumstances.
Through vivid yet subtle symbols, the author weaves a complex web with which to showcase the narrator's oppressive upbringing. Two literary
Within every story or poem, there is always an interpretation made by the reader, whether right or wrong. In doing so, one must thoughtfully analyze all aspects of the story in order to make the most accurate assessment based on the literary elements the author has used. Compared and contrasted within the two short stories, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, and John Updike’s “A&P,” the literary elements character and theme are made evident. These two elements are prominent in each of the differing stories yet similarities are found through each by studying the elements. The girls’ innocence and naivety as characters act as passages to show something superior, oppression in society shown towards women that is not equally shown towards men.
In the story “Two Kinds”, the author, Amy Tan, intends to make reader think of the meaning behind the story. She doesn’t speak out as an analyzer to illustrate what is the real problem between her and her mother. Instead, she uses her own point of view as a narrator to state what she has experienced and what she feels in her mind all along the story. She has not judged what is right or wrong based on her opinion. Instead of giving instruction of how to solve a family issue, the author chooses to write a narrative diary containing her true feeling toward events during her childhood, which offers reader not only a clear account, but insight on how the narrator feels frustrated due to failing her mother’s expectations which leads to a large conflict between the narrator and her mother.