My First Goose Isaac Babel Analysis

New Criticism of “My First Goose”
In “My First Goose” by Isaac Babel an educated, Russian soldier brutally kills a goose to be accepted by his comrades. This soldier narrates the story with an expressive and sweet-sounding language demonstrating the way he sees the world around him. The descriptive narrative often reveals deeper aspects of the character. Literary devices such as imagery, symbolism, and irony are used in the text to convey a scholarly character who sees the world with an artistic view
The imagery in the text clearly validates the character’s creative perspective. The soldier narrates his story with beautiful similes and personification to describe his environment during this occurrence. Commander Savitsky’s legs are portrayed

as “like two girls wedged to their shoulders in riding boots,” and the dying sun compared to a pumpkin breathing its last rosy breath. The protagonist’s use of figurative imagery in these lines would require an artistic eye to create such descriptions. Additionally, the character perceives objects and ideas such as the moon and the evening with womanly characteristics. This kind of description or imagery is often used by those with an imaginative outlook. Moreover, the difference between the way he describes the climax, killing the goose, with only literal imagery and how the rest of the story contains a decent amount of figurative imagery shows that while he cannot embellish his own brutal actions, he still observes the world around him artistically.
The soldier stating that the moon is like a cheap earring and the evening with her twilight sheets and motherly palms could be symbolic for the absence of a woman in his life.

His use of a female presence in his expressive narration possibly reveals a lack of a literal woman in his life. This yearning for female company is expressed through his poetic descriptions. The last sentence almost confirms his desire when he states, “I dreamed and saw women in my dreams…” Also, legs are mentioned at the beginning and the end of the text. The first appearance of legs is described by the character as “two girls wedged to their shoulders in riding boots” and again when the soldiers’ legs are tangled together while sleeping under the stars. The character notices these legs and describes them to symbolize how he feels at the beginning and by the end of the story. In the beginning of the text the narrator seems out of place, like he is being thrown smack-dab into this group of men. The legs are wedged into boots much like the character is shoved into this troop of crude soldiers. By the end, the character is accepted by and comfortable with his fellow comrades, blending into the group. His legs in the end are mixed with the others representing his acceptance as a member of the

camp.
Irony is used to draw attention and add humor to the text. In the lines, “then he turned his backside toward me, and with uncommon dexterity began emitting shameless sounds” and “…having exhausted the limited resources of his artistry,” it is ironic that this immature act of passing gas at someone is described in a refined and sophisticated way. The fact that the narrator depicts this juvenile action using a dignified language shows how he can creatively illustrate even distasteful activities. Furthermore, the soldier’s contrast in literal and figurative language draws attention to the climax of the story. Despite the character’s imaginative outlook, ironically the climax is highlighted by his lack of metaphorical artistry in this scene.
Through a beautifully descriptive narrative the character’s worldly outlook is expressed. With the use of irony, symbolism, and imagery deeper aspects of the character such as his longing for a woman and his strive to fit in is conveyed in his illustrative language. Using his charming vocabulary it is expressed that he can see and narrate the world around him from an artistic perspective.