My first Goose is a Decisive Innotation Story

My First Goose is a prime example of a decisive initiation story. A series of events taking place in this protagonist’s life changes him from a young adult to a mature man. As Mordecai Marcus explains, “An initiation story may be said to show its young protagonist experiencing a significant change of knowledge about the world or himself, or a change of character, or of both, and this change must point or lead him toward an adult world.” There are many elements in this literature which qualifies it as an initiation story.

In the first few paragraphs of this story the protagonist speaks of the Commander of the VI Division like a young boy describing his favorite athletic star. The protagonist speaks of him in such detail as if he is admiring him:

I wondered at the beauty of his giant’s body. He rose, the purple of his riding-breeches and the crimson of his little tilted cap and the decorations stuck on his chest cleaving the hut…A smell of scent and sickly sweet freshness of soap emanated from him. His long legs were like girls sheathed to neck in shining riding-boots. The protagonist in this story is in awe over Savitsky. He is admiring his metals, his large body, and his command. This is something that is more so common with immature adolescence of a society. It is an admirable quality of mature men to have confidence in their person, but the protagonist shows that he has yet to achieve this quality. Also, he makes reference to a girl’s leg. A mature male would not say girl, he would say women’s.

The protagonist in this story is seen as an intellectual rather than a killer. "The dying sun, round and yellow as a pumpkin, was giving up its roseate ghost to the skies", these are not he words of a soldier, they...

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...tagonist in the story has gone from a scared adolescence to a respected man. He chooses to take the advice giving to him by the quartermaster. By doing this, the protagonist gains the respect of his comrades, and he knows that his life is forever changed by the slaughter of one goose. “I dreamed: and in my dreams saw women. But my heart, stained with bloodshed, grated and brimmed over.” The protagonist knows that now he is one of them, but, none the less, he is hurt because it is apparent that there will be more violence to come. He came to this camp as a writer, and will leave a respected solider. It is a quality of a man to recognize his triumphs and accept his defeats. It is my belief that the protagonist in My First Goose goes though a series of events that brings about the change from adolescence to man hood thus deeming this short story a decisive initiations.