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Narrative techniques
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In his debut novel entitled We the Animals, Justin Torres exposes a story centered around a dysfunctional family. One can argue that the novel consists of multiple small stories instead of one continuous story. The family consists of a mother, father, and their three young sons. Ranging from ages 7-10, Manny is the first-born, followed by Joel the middle child, and Mijo is the baby of the family. It is told from the point of view of the youngest son, whose name is not revealed until the ending of the novel. Readers find out that his name is Mijo during a touching scene between him and his father. Mijo recounts different experiences him and his brothers faced growing up in their home. Torres uses those experiences to depict how negligence …show more content…
The father is Puerto Rican and the mother is white and they conceived their sons at an early age. Their sons refer to them as “Ma” and “Paps”. The environment the sons are brought up in isn’t the best; the family is poor. Being in that type of environment is stressful and from a parent’s perspective, the only goal is to get out of that environment. “We woke to the sound of Paps digging out back, his grunt, his heave, his shovel hack…. If Paps had looked up, we would have appeared to him like a three-torsoed beast, but he didn’t look up…. We walked over and stood around the edge and peered down inside. ‘I’ll never get out of here,’Paps said” (Torres75-76). This describes the scene of when the sons found Paps out back digging a hole. As you know from the previous quote, Paps is trying to escape a bad situation and his main focus was to escape, however, he was neglecting his …show more content…
Torres uses the words like “mud” and “horseshit” to reveal how low and unwanted the eldest son feels. When we think of “mud” or “horseshit”, our first reaction would be to step over it or avoid the area that contains it at all costs. In this case, the people avoiding the “horseshit” are their parents. Not only that, but Torres includes the statement “we’re on our own” to further depict how neglectful the parents have been to their sons. Being the oldest, Manny is considered to be the responsible on because it states that., “Paps assumed it was all Manny’s idea because Manny was the oldest and because it was, actually, all Manny’s idea. He didn’t wait to get home but beat Manny right there in the field” (Torres83). Readers can infer that no matter what happens, Manny will always be the father’s “punching bag” whenever the boys would do something bad, which makes him feel unworthy as well. Then there’s Joel, the middle child. In most families, the middle child is never really glorified. It is as if they are a filler or some sort because the eldest child will always be praised for being head of the sibling clan, the youngest can be deemed the “favorite”, while the middle child is just there. Torres shows this by not giving readers the full Joel. Readers don’t know how Joel feels because, he wasn’t taught how to express his emotions, which parents should teach their child. Finally, there is Mijo; the youngest. Mijo,
Papi had lost both his house and land in Mexico after Abuela Evila had taken “ill and frail” (p.239) and Tia Emperatriz had managed to get Abuela’s signature on the deed of the property, which included both the land and Papi’s dream house. According to Tia Emperatriz, Papi did not need the house as he already was living in a “beautiful country” (p.239) and as he already had too much. Papi had wanted to speak better English and had wanted to move his family into a better neighborhood and had decided to enroll into adult school for evening class in order to reach his goal, however, after the incident with Tia Emperatriz, Papi stated “I’ve never felt
Two people with two completely different characteristics have something alike. Both Dally and Johnny are mentally tough because of their parents. Johnny and Dally’s parents both do not care for them and could care less about them. For example, during Dally’s childhood he went to jail, been in a gang, and has been in many fights and his dad still would not care for him even if he won the lottery. Dally also talks about his dad's disgrace towards him in the car with Johnny and Ponyboy, “‘ Shoot, my dad don’t give a hang whether I’m in jail or dead in a car wreck or drunk in a gutter...’”(88). Dally could easily live without his dad and he does for the most part. Dally just hangs around with his friends and stays at their place. Similarly, Johnny's parents use him like a rag doll to blow off steam, “his father always beating him up”(14). The gang knows what happenes in Johnny’s house. Once Ponyboy was witnessing, “Johnny take a whipping with a two-by-four from his old man”(33). Ponyboy talks about how loud and mean Johnny's mom is and,“you can...
The beginning of the narrative immediately talks about the absence of the father throughout the weekdays for a long durations. It states “The daylight absence of the men, the fathers, imbued the suburbs with the suspense of desertion.” (Tallent 152) The sentiment expressed in this statement is one that is not so apparent on TV of fathers being gone all day and the mother staying home and taking care of the house. The media only portrays scenes of when families are together which in turn causes both young and old individuals such as Soto to begin to question their family life when in reality there may be nothing wrong with said family but just a misleading images of the
Torres used specific words to convey the emotions of how the boys felt concerning their heritage; the boys felt as if they were outside of the loop. Therefore, they did not know what they belonged to or where they fit in. Their physical traits did not match up with the culture that they were trying to identify with –the Hispanic heritage. Yet, they wanted to find a way to belong. Furthermore, the theme also contributed to the identity aspect of the characters. Through their diction, readers, like myself, were able to draw important subject matters. In addition to word choice and themes, Torres applied various amounts of literary devices to drive his messages home, consequently enabling readers to understand the point of the passage, without giving up more information than needed. Close reading this particular passage gave me a better appreciation for what authors write, how they interpret their emotions, and how they execute their
From the beginning of the novel, Small presents various characteristics of his household structure that promoted dysfunctional relationships when he was a child. “From the book’s very first pages, he presents their home filled with a nervous potential violence.” (Pedler) Small begins the novel, being the age of six, by describing each family member’s non verbal vocabularies. He begins with his mother’s language which was slamming cupboard doors, than his father’s, punching a punching bag, next his brother’s, beating on a drum, and lastly himself, getting sick. The lack of verbal communication in the household can create tension within the family because there is no exchange of feelings or concerns. If someone is going through mental or physical pain, others in the family wouldn’t know about it because there is no communication of that sort within the household. Another household characteristic that prompted dysfunctional relationships was the amount and way the mother had input. For example, there is a
The family goes through struggles, such as their son having dyslexia, their daughter joining private school, and George trying to find his biological father. Many of the statements and visuals portrayed are those that negatively illustrate how Mexicans and Cubans act.... ... middle of paper ... ... Social Cognition (2008): 314-332. Browne. "
The movie begins with the family and parenting styles concept of child development by introducing the audience to the main character James and his parents. James lives in a two-parent household with his authoritative parents who are providing him with warmth, love, and encouragement (Levine & Munsch, pp. 521-522). This concept of parenting styles is shown as the movie begins and James is seen spending time with his parents. Then suddenly, James’ world changes and he is abandoned as a result of his parents being killed. This causes James to become orphaned and forced to live with his authoritarian aunts, Spiker and Sponge. Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge are very controlling towards James and expect him to obey their rules without allowing him to express his feelings. This authoritarian behavior is seen throughout the movie. Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge are also uninvolved, neglectful, and abusive, using verbal and physical punishment on James when they feel it’s necessary, which is also seen throughout the movie (Levine & Munsch, p. 522). These behaviors cause James to develop lower self-esteem, show less intellectual curiosity, and feel lonely and afraid, which are typical outcomes of an authoritarian parenting approach (Levine & Munsch, pp. 521-523). Although James’ aunts’ authoritative parenting style has an effect on his emotional and social behaviors, it is his parents authoritative parenting that plays a...
Have you ever stopped and thought about what everybody in the world has in common? Family is a very common thing. It could just be a group of people that you care about and love or it could just be a person. Family is always together and family never falls apart. Family is that one group that you love and worry about and it can be that one person. In the book The Outsiders by S.E Hinton family is a very important thing. Family is the best blessing to have. The theme S.E Hinton talks about is family always sticks together.
In the beginning, the mother leaves the house and runs off into the cornfields near the house. The father asks his brother to babysit the children while he runs after his wife. Uncle Trash is the father’s brother; he comes to watch the boys while the father runs after the wife. While both parents are gone, the children are not exactly alone. Uncle Trash is rarely with the boys throughout the story, he is always leaving to go to the bar and gamble. This way in the story, the boys are always alone and can do whatever they want. This freedom often leads to bad experiences when left in the hands of children. The boys in the story did not get into trouble till the end of the story, in the mean time they dug holes in the yard and played with toy metal cars until the uncle returned sometimes days later. Unsupervised children can be very dangerous; they can hurt themselves or others. “Uncle Trash said the man who won the card game went ahead and beat up Uncle Trash on purpose anyway”. For the time being Uncle Trash is their role model. He is clearly a bad role model judging from this line in the story. This relates to the reality side of things, where children grow up with parents who are just like Uncle Trash. The author tries relating scenarios from the story to life to get the audience to understand the society they live in. Another aspect of unsupervised children would be abandonment, which the boys
The opening section of this story is a third person narrative. The narrator immediately introduces a poor Chicano family with two young children. A few initial facts that the reader picks up in the opening paragraph are that both parents have to work, the children often play by themselves in back allies and carry their own keys, and the father has warned the children to always avoid the police.
...n never to give up and to fight against racism. "We keep doing what we gotta, and we don't give up, we can't'; They also teach the children to demand respect. This plays an important part in the stability and the survival of the family. Another thing they have in common is that they both value their roots through the act of story telling, passing on their cultural heritage from generation to generation which happens often throughout the novel. For example during Christmas time Papa tells the children, "and ole Hammer and me, we used to sneak up there whenever it'd get so hot you couldn't hardly move and take a couple of them melons on down to the pond and let them get real chilled.';
It’s not easy to build an ideal family. In the article “The American Family” by Stephanie Coontz, she argued that during this century families succeed more when they discuss problems openly, and when social institutions are flexible in meeting families’ needs. When women have more choices to make their own decisions. She also argued that to have an ideal family women can expect a lot from men especially when it comes to his involvement in the house. Raymond Carver, the author of “Where He Was: Memories of My Father”, argued how his upbringing and lack of social institutions prevented him from building an ideal family. He showed the readers that his mother hide all the problems instead of solving them. She also didn’t have any choice but to stay with his drunk father, who was barely involved in the house. Carvers’ memoir is relevant to Coontz argument about what is needed to have an ideal family.
The dominant characteristics found within ‘Competitive Brothers’ focuses on the familial dynamics, son’s duty to his father, and test of will and character. All three stories shared the same family unit, which was made up of one parental figure that serves to
“In my mind, they seemed happy together, in the bantering, ironic manner of sitcom couples, and their arguments seemed full of comedy, as if a laugh track might ring out after their best put-down lines.” (p.54). It’s all a part of an elaborate fantasy he’s created in order to ignore reality. There are also times in the story where the Narrator’s doesn't comprehend the situation--at one point he describes his mother’s drunkenness, “She looked sad, and for a moment lost her balance slightly as she reached down to run a palm across my cheek” (p.59-60). Whether his lack of comprehension is because of his youth, or intentional is unknown. His relationship with his brother is also indicative of a troubled youth. In the imaginary city, the Narrator’s brother is his “nemesis”. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue--there’s nothing strange about sibling rivalry, however, in this case the Narrator never really grows out of it. He doesn’t actively hate his brother, but he does seem to carry a certain amount of disdain for him. When describing how their family went in
THOSE OF US WHO grew up in the 1950s got an image of the American family that was not, shall we say, accurate. We were told, Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver, and Ozzie and Harriet were not just the way things were supposed to be—but the way things were