Castellanos, Ihimaera, and Wideman’s Short Stories

Comparison/Contrast: Castellanos, Ihimaera, and Wideman’s Short Stories
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Comparison/Contrast: Castellanos, Ihimaera, and Wideman’s Short Stories
Stories are usually a great source of rich history as they have been used to pass cultural beliefs from one generation to another, thereby preserving culture. Through short stories, people get to quickly understand the message that the author is conveying without committing too much time to the story. The short stories “Death of the Tiger”, by Rosario Castellanos, “Presents”, by John Edgar Wideman, and “His First Ball”, by Witi Ihimaera explore the plight of minority groups across different eras and countries. The authors quickly bring their characters to life and can narrate the experiences of minority communities through a simple plot. While the three stories use concise narrative to explore the same theme by describing the experiences of the respective minority communities, there are three main differences identified in terms of the narrative technique, the variety of English, and the characterization used by each author to highlight the plight of their characters.
The first point of discussion will be the narrative technique used by the three authors. Castellanos uses the third-person narrative technique to convey her message. The events described in the story do not occur to her and as such, she can maintain her objectivity while telling the story. According to Alami (2016), third-person narration can either be external or internal. Castellanos uses an internal third-person point of view by not only telling the stories as an outsider but by also illuminating what the characters are feeling or thinking. For instance, she shows the reader what the Bolometic, her main characters in the story, were feeling when they were asked personal questions by Don Juvencio. Ca...