Maxwell Aubrey Professor Cebulski ENGL 2110 March 10, 2015 Say You’re One of Them Uwen Akpan’s Say You’re One of Them is a brilliant collection of five unique short stories that follow the lives of unsuspecting children as they cope with the ever-changing adult world. In “My Parent’s Bedroom” Akpan puts the reader directly into the Rwandan genocide experienced through the eyes of a nine-year-old girl. She is tricked into trusting both her Papa and her “wise” Uncle who end up causing her more pain. “Fattening for Gabon” is a story of and young boy and his sister who are being looked after by their uncle who tricks them by selling them into slavery. Like in the story of Ajapa and Elede the Pig where the kind pig is tricked into loaning money …show more content…
The narrator, Kotchikpa is a ten-year-old boy who lives with his sister Yewa and his uncle Fofo. Kotchikpa like and trusts his uncle because he buys them clothes, food but mostly because he looks after him and his sister for his parents have AIDS. Kotchikpa knows that Fofo takes people across the border so when he brings home a brand new bike he isn’t surprised. Fofo says the bike will “boost our family income” and Kotchikpa trusts him. Fofo reviles he gets all of these things because of a wealthy benefactor. This very same man is supplying money so that Kotchikpa and Yewa can go to school. Fofo tells the children to trust him when meeting these new strange people called Mama and Papa or “Godparents” and when learning about their “new life”. Kotchikpa and Yewa trust Fofo and are enjoying their new lives filled with education, church and massive feasts. Fofo then begins to prepare them to go live a better life with the “Godparents” by sleeping in uncomfortable places and drinking seawater. Fofo then begins to have a change of heart and even try’s to escape with the children, but is caught and killed. The children are caged up and Kotchikpa manages to escape, but is forced to leave his sister behind. Kotchikpa trusted Fofo as if he was his father and he was betrayed. Just like in “My Parents Bedroom” and Ajapa and Elede the Pig the protagonist put trust in someone only to be …show more content…
The story Ajapa and Elede the Pig is no different as is shows the notorious trickster Ajapa as he convinces Elede the pig to loan him money. Elede is hesitant to trust the well know thief, but he ends up loaning him the money under the principal “…friends must win out.” Elede trusts him at first, but after missing payments Elede begins to become quite angry with Ajapa. Ajapa then comes up with one last plan to manipulate Elede and dodge paying him back. Ajapas uses his wife to help trick Elede, his plan works and the Pig is stuck “rooting in the mud.” Like in Akpan’s short stories this story shows the reliance of the trickster throughout West African
In addition, we have a similar story in which the girl already fell into the mistake and doesn’t even know how to love a child. Shows the struggle of an innocent child having to nurture a
Exploring the minds of six-year-olds can be a very interesting experience. Gary Soto narrates this story as a young boy at a time when he seems to be young and foolish. Soto does a great job of showing the contrast between right and wrong through a child’s eyes. He successfully conveys the guilt of the boy through his use of imagery, repetition and contrast. He uses these tools to get the reader into the mind of the boy so that they can explore his guilt and thoughts.
However The great majority of parents are often cryptic in these necessary lessons while still others try to build a protective shield around their children. Do they really believe this is to the benefit of our youth? It is understandable to want to protect children from unnecessary evils, but sometimes in constructing walls around their worldly vision they are in all actuality cutting their children off from reality. It is so much healthier and helpful to confront these issues head-on, rather than trying to skirt around them. & Juliet" by the students, such avoidance of the matter at hand will often prove more harmful in the development of young minds. Through the various misconceptions of the children in her short story, "The Brother in Vietnam," Maxine Hong Kingston allows her readers to see just how necessary truth is to the vulnerable minds of our youth.
The influence family members can have on the development of a child is enormous; they can either mold a healthy mind or drive a child toward darkness. Jennifer Egan’s Safari is a short story that highlights the different relationships in a family with a complicated background. Rolph and Charlie come from a divorced household and join their father, Lou, and his new girlfriend, Mindy, on an African safari. As the events of the trip unfold, Lou’s children experience a coming of age in which they lose the innocence they once possessed. The significant impact of family dynamic on children’s transition into adulthood is presented in Safari. Jennifer Egan uses Mindy’s structural classifications of Charlie and Rolph to demonstrate how Lou and Mindy’s relationship hinders the maturation of the two kids.
He has endured and overcame many fears and struggles, but during this section, we truly acquire an insight of what the little boy is actually like – his thoughts, his opinions, his personality. Contrary to his surroundings, the little boy is vibrant and almost the only lively thing around. I love him! He is awfully appalled by the “bad guys” and shockingly sympathetic toward dead people. For example, when the father raided a house and found food, the little boy suggested that they should thank them because even though they’re dead or gone, without them, the little boy and father would starve. My heart goes out to him because he is enduring things little boys should never go through, even if this novel is just a fictional
The narrator and his brother’s bear physical abuse from pap’s which led them to become more violent towards one another and people outside. The narrator and his brothers were abused by their father whe...
The narrator of this short story is Adelaine, a young native girl who is being molested by her Uncle Josh for money and gifts. She is trapped in a cycle of abuse, her uncle was molested by the priest in residential school and now her uncle molests her. She has a flashback to when she was a kid watching Sesame Street and she says “Uncle Josh undoes his pants” (190) and that when “it’s over he’ll have treats for me” (190). She says that she is not like her sister who “runs to Mommy about everything” (190). She has no way out of the cyle, she is trapped in
This story makes the reader wonder, why must parents do this to their children, what kinds of motifs do they have for essentially ruining their child’s life. I believe
My thesis statement is that children’s innocence enables them to cope in difficult situations. Children generally have a tendency to lighten the mood in sad situations because of their innocent nature. They turn even the saddest situations to mild, innocent situations. This is evident when Marjane says “these stories had given me new ideas for games”, (Satrapi, 55). By saying this she refers to her uncle’s stories of how he and other prisoners were tortured in prison. Stories of torture have never been easy to hear even for adults but Marjane so innocentl...
The boy comprehends the severity of the situations he is faced with, such as lack of food or water, and treats his father with the same respect and equality that the man gives him. He insists on sharing his portions with his father when they are uneven, and he remains cautious at all times, even when his father is not. The boy’s fire is fueled by his love for his father, which is shown by the boy’s priority on caring for his father’s wellbeing, just as the man does for him. This love and responsibility, manifesting in the form of self-sacrifice and compassion, lies in direct juxtaposition to the rest of the world, where selfishness and indifference reigns
The story provides many sources for the boy's animosity. Beginning with his home and overall environment, and reaching all the way to the adults that surround him. However, it is clear that all of these causes of the boy's isolation have something in common, he has control over none of these factors. While many of these circumstances no one can expect to have control over, it is the culmination of all these elements that lead to the boy’s undeniable feeling of lack of control.
As an ignorant Western society, we use single stories as a way to educate others on cultures that we don’t even know about. They are the false pictures we have of foreign cultures that our societies
The children couldn’t accept what they thought was so horrible. There was a lot of ignorance and carelessness portrayed throughout this short story. The theme of ungratefulness was revealed in this story; The author depicted how disrespecting someone can inturn feed you with information you may wish you never knew and how someone can do one wrong thing and it immediately erases all the good things a person did throughout their
Adam, a corporal officer, starts as man who works everyday to catch the ‘villains’ of society, but is not spending enough time with his family, especially his son. He favors his nine year old daughter over his fifteen year old son. Adam views his daughter as a sweet child, and his son as a stubborn teenager who is going through a rebellious stage. However, when his daughter is killed in an accident, his perspective of family changes. In his grief, he states that he wishes he had been a better father. His wife reminds him that he still is a father and he realizes that he still has a chance with his son, Dylan. After his Daughter’s death, he creates a resolution from scriptures that states how he will be a better father. Because of the resolution he creates, he opens up to and spends more time with his son. By th...
My favourite text is a play titled “Anowa” by Ama Ataa Aidoo which was published in 1969. This book was first given to me by my father on my twelfth birthday. Although I was disappointed initially because I was expecting something “girly” on my birthday, I liked it when I read it because of the moral lessons it portrayed and the language used in the play. However, I got a deeper understanding of the test after I did a post-colonial and a feminist analysis of the text. In my post-colonial analysis, I saw that in a sense Anowa represents the beauty of the formal African society which was destroyed as a result of colonialism.