Objective Criticism of the Short Story the Shawl

Shawl

Objective Criticism of a Short Story:

The Shawl by Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich's narrative is a story within a story. The author begins with a legend-like introduction of the hardships facing a family, which she later links with the present troubles, though a few generations later, of the same family. In the first part of the narrative, the author presents her audience with the two parents and their two children, a boy of five and a girl of nine. However, she makes note that the mother bears a child by a man other than her husband, which soon tears the family apart. The mother falls out of love with her husband quickly, and chooses to go live with her lover. She takes her daughter and her baby, and proceeds to be driven to her lover by his uncle, while the father is left behind with the boy of five. When the boy understands that he is to be left with his father, he cries and runs after his mother and sister, after their wagon, in the snow, until he can no longer run and falls down, disappointed and sad. The reader is then told the boy lifts up his head and sees grey shadows approaching the wagon that carries his mother and sister, but he is not afraid. It is only later that the reader understands that these grey shadows are wolves that approached the sled, wolves that were hungry, and that would not led the travelers pass without a toll. The wolves thus hunt the family, but soon the boy finds out that only his nine-year-old sister was sacrificed as tribute to the animals. This is evidenced by her torn plaid shawl that the father finds buried in the snow.

The next part of the story focuses on the five-year-old boy's present family, composed of three children. The author describes the now widowed man's increasing alcoholism, and tells of the three children's fears and adventures while hiding to escape the father's drunken violence. Finally, the oldest child, who is also the narrator, incapable of sustaining another beating, proceeds to take on his father with his own fists, and beats him until the father falls down to the ground. The oldest boy then bends down and tends to his father with the loose, plaid rag that the father always carries with him. The rag holds no significance for the boy, but it is so important to his father, that the latter, upon seeing this small piece of blanket wiping his face, quits drinking and shares the childhood story of his sister with his son. The story ends with the boy saying to his father that perhaps, instead of pitying the sister and lamenting her departure from this world, he should believe that the sister performed her duty faithfully, for neither mother, nor baby, nor uncle, who were all too necessary for the mission at hand so many years ago, could have been sacrificed.

This short summary of the story thus proves the significance of the literary works' ability to describe the dynamics of a family, how the past and these dynamics can transcend years and generations and how understanding them proves so vital to aiding the survival of the lineage. The elements most important to the author's ability to relate this overarching theme are the strong plot of the story, its seamless setting transition from past to present, a strong narrator supported by fully-fledged character descriptions, and the conflicts associated with these various characters, which all come to fruition.

The plot of the story includes many characters. In the first part, the characters presented are the woman/Aanakwad, the woman's husband/the man/the father, the nine-year-old girl, the five-year-old boy, the uncle and the baby. The woman's lover is also important to the story, though he is not directly presented as a character. Furthermore, the author only expands on the first four characters, and especially on the woman, in her description. Thus, the story's center is Aanakwad and her actions, for without this character, the story could not have taken place. She thus becomes a major character. The five-year-old boy is also important for the transition from past to present, as he is the link between the two stories, for he is the one that will carry the memory of his sister forward and he is thus another major character. The third major character is the sister, for her death changes the boy for the worse, then, much later, for the better by helping him see past his drunkenness. The father is a minor character: he tells the boy about the sister's death and the lack of love between him and his wife does contribute to her departure, but the father has no direct impact on his son's later struggles and the continuation of the first story into the second. The father is simply there to look after his son, but after fulfilling this role, he is no longer mentioned.

In the second part of the story, the author focuses on the family of four: the father, who is the grown up five-year-old from the previous story, and his three children, one who is ten years old and two twins, both six years old. The father is presented prior, during and after his struggle with death and alcoholism, and the children are presented while small and as adults as well. This gives the second part of Erdrich's story a greater timeframe with which to work, as well as ability to expand her characters in this story and add to missing parts of the previous story, such as the sister's death, an element upon which she elaborates at the end of the story. Furthermore, though the entire story is told primarily in the first person, it contains third person omniscient elements. The narrator uses the pronoun "I" throughout the story, but describes the characters in the third person, including their thoughts and feelings, a strategy that gives the story depth.

In terms of plot, the story is composed of two parts, as summarized above. The plot is quite complex for such a short story. There is conflict from the very beginning, for the opening of the story presents an illegitimate child and the ultimate break-up of a family. This internal element of conflict, seen in the thoughts and emotions of the mother is carried throughout, and is seen in the breakdown of the five-year-old boy and later this boy as an alcoholic man and father, who is reacting to his mother's actions and his sister's premature death. There is much tension in both parts of the story, within both families, which is logical given the fact that it is the same family, presented in different generations.