Accepting People In Armin Greder's The Island

The picture story book, The Island, by Armin Greder, shows the importance of accepting people for who they are. This can be seen when the Islanders made excuses on why not to accept the Stranger and didn’t get to know him before judging him. This is also shown when the Villagers locked him away in a goat pen and when they sent him back out to the ocean.

The Villagers became paranoid about the Stranger so they sent him back out to sea and built a wall to keep everyone out. The Islanders became so afraid of the stranger because he was different, “They hadn’t asked for him, but he was here.”. They thought he could murder them, “‘I am sure he could murder us all if he could…’” and steal their food, but all the stranger was doing was trying to find a safer place. So the Villagers became afraid and sent the Stranger back to the ocean, “And they went to the goat pen… seized the man, marched him to his raft and push him out to sea.”. They then built a great wall to keep everyone out. “And they built a great wall all around the island, with watchtowers from which they could search the sea for signs of rafts…” . A lack of acceptance lead to the islanders building a wall to keep everyone else out.

The Villagers that lived on the island came up with excuses on why not to accept the Stranger. When the Villagers let the stranger in, they thought of …show more content…
The Islanders, when they took the Stranger in, judged him by the way he looked, “He wasn’t like them”, and didn’t treat him well, “…took him to a goats pen that had been empty for a long time.”. They gave him no job and no food or water. By treating the Stranger this way, Armin Greder is explaining that just because someone is different, they should be treated the same as everyone else. The Islanders judged the Stranger, while the should’ve accepted him even if he was different because it is important to accept