Ellen Gilchrist writes about the challenges and expectations faced by Southern girls and women throughout the different times of history in her literature. Next, she writes about the oppression/prejudice that was going on during these times through the characters in her books. Gilchrist also writes about the historical events that were happening, while these stories were taking place, like World War II. She lastly writes about the loss of innocence in her literature, after the characters see something that changes their lives forever. “Victory over Japan”, by Gilchrist, incorporates all these topics that show above. This book was published in 1984 in the series, A Book of Short Stories. In my literary analysis of this book, I will give some
…show more content…
Sauer discusses the major themes that Gilchrist uses in her book, “Victory over Japan”. In this critique, Sauer discusses the rites of passage into adulthood through the main character, Rhoda, because in the story, she is growing up trying to piece together parts of reality to understand what is happening in her life with the world going to war and her family being separated by oceans thanks to the Second World War. He also discusses how Gilchrist stirs up the bygone era of innocence that was taking place at the time of this book in the 1940’s, yet the American dream is an illusion that also has its dark underside. Lastly, Sauer discusses the theme of sexual awareness in Gilchrist’s book by writing that sexuality is ever-present in this world, but the child cannot recognize it. For example, the quote that he uses in the story to make his statement credible is “He’d been coming by a lot since daddy was overseas. That was just like my mother. To be best friends with the minister.” By this Sauer means that Rhoda had no idea what was going on between the minister and her mother, because she thought that since they have become good friends with each other, she thought that they were just hanging out with each other, instead of what was really going on between the two, and that is an affair. This is the many discussions that Sauer had about Ellen Gilchrist’s work and why the three themes he talked about in “Victory over Japan” are really
Sauer discusses the major themes that Gilchrist uses in her book, “Victory over Japan”. In this critique, Sauer discusses the rites of passage into adulthood through the main character, Rhoda, because in the story, she is growing up trying to piece together parts of reality to understand what is happening in her life with the world going to war and her family being separated by oceans thanks to the Second World War. He also discusses how Gilchrist stirs up the bygone era of innocence that was taking place at the time of this book in the 1940’s, yet the American dream is an illusion that also has its dark underside. Lastly, Sauer discusses the theme of sexual awareness in Gilchrist’s book by writing that sexuality is ever-present in this world, but the child cannot recognize it. For example, the quote that he uses in the story to make his statement credible is “He’d been coming by a lot since daddy was overseas. That was just like my mother. To be best friends with the minister.” By this Sauer means that Rhoda had no idea what was going on between the minister and her mother, because she thought that since they have become good friends with each other, she thought that they were just hanging out with each other, instead of what was really going on between the two, and that is an affair. This is the many discussions that Sauer had about Ellen Gilchrist’s work and why the three themes he talked about in “Victory over Japan” are really