Symbolism And Imagery In The Intruder By Andre Dubus

The genre of coming of age stories is about teenagers or children in general that have a certain trait or characteristic that authors like to add in to help the reader analyze the story, it helps to really understand the meaning behind what they're trying to say. In the following coming of age short stories the authors used symbolism and/or imagery to illustrate the development into adulthood.

In the story The intruder by Andre Dubus, it has the main character Kenneth who visualizes his image of being heroic. A quote from the story is: “Because Kenneth loved his parents and his sister and because he could not tell them why he went to the woods...He could not say that on the hill he became great, that he had saved a beautiful girl

from the river.” (Pg 268) This quote shows that the author Andre Dubus has the main character Kenneth imagine his own world of being heroic and the perfect male image. This is an example of imagery that he used in the story to help emphasize what he pictures as what being the perfect male human being is. Another quote would be “ Douglas is coming tonight” She said. “Oh” …. He worked slowly, pausing often to listen for Douglas’s car, because he wanted to be cleaning the rifle when Douglas came.” (Pg 273) In this part of the story Douglas is wanting to seem confident in himself by having a gun and cleaning cloth in his hands by the time Douglas arrives to the house. Kenneth seems to be intimidated by Douglas since he plays football, with this in mind it's as if Kenneth doesn't have as much self confidence in himself than other males. This short coming of age story is similar to The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant.

In the story The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant by J.D. Wetherell