Summary Of A West Coast Woman And Incidents At The Shrine

In the two short stories, A West coast Woman by Jan Hopaklyissumqwa Gould and Incidents at the Shrine by Ben Okri, they display different kinds of spiritual practices. In comparison to the two stories, they have different significant spiritual places that take place in the stories, characters received powers in different ways, and characters had different spiritual outcomes in the same kind of setting. The short stories display different spiritual places that take place in the stories such as the sacred pool (A West coast Woman) and the shrine house (Incidents at the Shrine). For instance, the sacred pool is a beautiful spiritual place in nature where it’s peaceful and can go there for anything, whether you want to be in a peaceful place or have a spiritual ritual. A shrine house is also a sacred place, but in the story Incidents at the Shrine, the author expresses it as not so …show more content…
Secondly, characters received powers in different ways, for an example, Great Uncle Joe, from A West coast Woman and the Image-maker, from Incidents at the Shrine. Great Uncle Joe got his spirit power from a sacred pool points out the narrator, “Yes, that pool was where my Great Uncle Joe got his spirit power.” (Gould), while The Image-maker, from Incidents at the Shrine, got his power from witnessing certain figures in the forest. Furthermore, characters had different spiritual outcomes in the same kind of setting, by the same token, the Grandfather and the Image-Maker going into a forest in a certain state and coming out different. The Grandfather went into the forest when he found out about Sadie’s death and came out weak physically and mentally “when he came out of those woods…he has lost his power and some of his brains…” (Gould). The Image-maker on the other hand, came out of the forest healed and with powers “I went deep into the forest because my arm hurt…I found the images…my pain stopped…they made me the Image-maker.”