The paper seeks to make a comparison between the Life experience of the main characters in three fictional stories. Poetry can be all this by Joy Harjo, Bone Girl by Joseph Bruchac and spirit woman by Paula Gunn Allen are the three stories whose main characters are discussed below. Joseph Bruchac uses a first person narrative style in the Bone girl making the narrator the story’s main character. The narrator in the Bone girl lives alone after separating With his wife, the elderly man fighting alcohol addiction often finds sleep in the ditches and walks home late into the night from his drinking sprees. The narrator appears to suffer from heightened stress exerted by age and loneliness, as the story is narrated in past principle tense the author aptly magnifies what the narrator feels about his earlier actions. Burdened by loneliness occasioned by separation with his wife the narrator resorts to alcohol and young girls for leisure. The narrator encounters the bone girl after one of his drinking outings late into the night at the graveyard, this encounter influences significantly the life of the narrator who later reunites with his wife and lives with Tommy his nephew. The story focuses on the narrator’s life experience widely, the author builds the story based on the main characters life experience while ensuring the themes of cultural heritage and cultural pride are well projected. The main character in Joy Harjo’s poetry can be all this is the narrator a young minority activist who recently joined the University of New Mexico, The young narrator is soon enchanted by a poet named Ortiz who becomes a central affixation in her life. The author shares the story based on the narrator’s experience and uses this platform to enhance the theme of equality and cultural pride. The narrator finds an attraction in poetry and learns its significance even as a tool of activism perceptions she did not hold before joining New Mexico University.
The main character’s experiences shape the development of the story plot as well as the advancement of the underlying themes in the story. Ephanie a young Indian woman is the main character in the spirit woman by Paula Gunn Allen. The author describes a meeting between Ephanie and the spirit woman a fictitious character seemingly tied to the story by the author to convey a message. The spirit woman is trapped in worlds and the main character wonders about life and the meaningfulness of life here and beyond. The story plot of the spirit woman revolves around the interaction between the main characters and the spirit woman. Through this experience, the author discusses the theme of gender equality as well as the theme of life and death transition. The life experiences of the three main characters are fundamental in building the individual stories. The authors use the characters experiences to pass messages both directly and indirectly. Further, the main characters also play a significant role in sustaining the prose flow in all the short stories (Husserl p54).
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The use of main characters varies in each of the three stories. The authors exploit the benefits of the main characters experiences in improving efficient communication with their readers. Besides advancing the various themes recurrent in the stories, the experiences are also used by the authors to exemplify the relevance of the stories to America and American's. The experiences connect the readers with the main characters causing mutual connections to the experience that significantly affects how different readers, especially of native origin, would interpret the messages in the three stories. The bone girl connects its reader with the life of an elderly alcoholic on retirement yet hardly settled in his mind. Ephanie, on the other, Is a reflection of common American women especially in the 18 th century and even the 19 th century. The society at the time was discriminative to women thus women lived in both social and economic restriction. Ephanie’s experience encapsulates the experiences of most American women at the time and thus most readers would identify with the situation and interpret the contained message differently from readers who would not identify with the experience.
The stories’ main characters play a wide role in the efficacy of communication between the authors and their audiences. The authors not only use the main characters as a tool to pass the underlying themes across but also to enhance the story prose. The main characters experiences differ from one story to another. The experiences are however connected by several factors. The context of the stories is one of the similarities shared by the three main characters. The purpose of the experience use in the story is also a feature commonly identifiable among the main characters. The differences among the characters experience is influenced by among other factors the experiences of the main characters contribute significantly to prose flow consistency and sustainability. Harjo in, the poetry can be all this, uses the main character’s experience to maintain the story plot. Apart from the main character who is also the narrator, Harjo, hardly features any other substantive character experiences. Nevertheless, Harjo builds the story on the narrator’s experience.
Similarly, the spirit woman largely revolves around Ephanie’s experience, the story begins with a narration of a meeting between the main character and the spirit woman. The author sufficiently builds the story around this experience. Joseph Bruchac also builds his story around the main characters life experience. The author begins with a first person narration of the narrator detailing his current position and continues to tell the story based on the character's expediences before and during the time of the narration. Evidently, the three authors use their main characters experiences to build the prose. The use of main character experience to build story prose is enhanced by two factors (Husserl 31). One, in short, story writing authors messages are often inhibited by length, consequently building a story from main characters experiences not only places messages into contexts but also contribute to story length shortening.
The main characters experiences share a notable similarity in contextual setting and causes of certain character backgrounds and behavior. The ideologies of the narrator in, poetry can be all this, are shaped by her origin as an Indian and part of the minority. Her conviction to sensitize against minority discrimination is driven by her native origin. Similarly, ephanie's experience is largely guided by cultural belief, foremost, in regards to spirits and regarding gender equality in the society. On the other hand, the narrator in Joseph Bruchac's Bone girl’s experience is also influenced by the context of his native home. The narrator already knows about the bone girl even though he does not recognize her when they meet. The narrator’s reaction to the ghost is largely guided by the principles of the Indian culture. He explains that the ghost’s haunting the family house would not cause him to move as over six generations had stayed on the same piece of land before him. Further, the narrator appears to recognize the Bone Girl from cultural folklore in the Indian culture, thus even though he fails to recognize her at the bridge the narrator clearly understands the message sent by the encounter.
The main characters experience advances a particular theme’s in the different stories. Equality is noticeably a cross-cutting theme discussed by all the authors. Harjo’s Poetry can be all this, examines the theme of inequality especially along tribal affiliation. The narrator’s experience as a native makes her aware of the discriminatory tendencies that she seeks to address in her sensitization program. The spirit girl also furthers the theme of equality particularly gender equality, Stephanie’s experience is aimed deliberating gender inequality theme in the story. The experience of the narrator in the Bone girl does not address the theme of equality in detail, however, the main characters experience shapes theme of isolation and consequently influences the flow of the story.
The main characters in the short story allow the different authors to pass critical underlying messages to their audiences. Ephanie, for example, plays a fundamental role in highlighting the role of women in the society (Husserl p72). Paula Allen advances the theme of gender equality as the main character reflects upon the various places women occupy in the society. Ephanie reflects on the women so long lost to her, who unknowingly were double women, never married and holding power like the clavicle and the power priests. She reflects upon women who were only sisters but never mothers yet were born to the same mind and sisters. She reflects on Women who called each other sister and yet were called upon as grandmothers by those who needed them for comfort, care, knowledge, and aid. Ephanie also reflects upon those women who never used their power to coerce, waited patiently weaving silently and only acted when called on. Through this reflection, the author examines the place of women in the society, Allen effectively illustrates the contrasting roles women have taken in the society and thus enhances the message of gender equality.
Similarly, Harjo effectively incorporates the use of character experiences to improve message efficacy for his audience. The main characters perception on the power of poetry as a tool for mobilization and sensitization of the public on minority rights and perception after her encounter with Ortiz are different. It appears as if the author aims at encouraging more action towards minority rights recognition. Through the main characters experience the author shows its audience how small efforts may not be too small to make a difference as the main character thought before her experience. Joseph Bruchac’s Bone girl does not immediately show relations between main characters life experience and message clarity. Nevertheless, the author effectively employs the main characters experience to further the underlying themes in the story.
The narrator in Harjo’s Poetry can be all this, is shaped by her conviction as opposed to circumstantial influence. The narrator is an adherent minority rights activist before she meets Ortiz a poet. Even though the story is then shaped by the consequent relationship the fundamental influence on the story and the major theme therein is influenced by her conviction. On the other hand, the other two main characters, the narrator in the Bone Girl and Ephain in the Spirit woman appear to be influenced by circumstances in their lives. The narrator in the Bone girl is affected by the stress induced by alcoholism and family separation in the beginning of the story. After his encounter with the Bone Girl, the narrator is further influenced to rescind heavy drinking and get back with his family. Similarly, Ephanie’s experience is shaped by circumstances as opposed to her personal belief or action. Ephanie’s experience is largely caused by her nature as a woman in a male-dominated society. Ephanie finds herself questioning the place of women in the society a circumstantial factor that she has no control over.
The most notable difference perhaps between the main characters experience is the nature of their experiences. Harjo’s Poetry can be all this is based on real life possible encounters as opposed to the experiences of the other characters in the bone girl and the spirit woman. The ghost experiences narrated by Ephanie and the narrator in the bone girl are set on superstitious grounds as opposed to potential real life situations
In conclusion, it is evident that the experiences of the main characters in the three stories share similarities with regard to context, application in the development of the stories and the advancement of the various themes in the stories. On the other hand, the experiences also differ to a given extent. Particular differences in nature and circumstances leading to the encounters, further differences are notable in the application of the themes in support of non-common themes. The main character's experiences have a significant effect on the message efficacy, story plot, theme advancement and to enable the authors to pass a message within confined lengths. The similarities in experiences shared by the main characters discussed above arise as a result of the influencing themes that the authors seek to incorporate in their stories. The experiences largely mirror American and American lifestyle at the time the stories were created. As a result of the degree of commonality in themes advanced by the three stories, the experiences of the main characters to some extent indicate similarities even in a plot.
Reference
Husserl, E. "Character Theory." The Fairytale and Plot Structure, 2013, doi:10.1057/9781137547088.0008.
