In his short story Blankets, Alex La Guma takes us through the life story of Choker. He makes use of the blankets as a motif and flashbacks to help us understand the past, which intern help us to understand the present. The essay will show how the story of Choker can be seen as tragic, and how the onlookers are antagonistic toward Choker and vice versa. It will also show how the readers can show both sympathy and antipathy toward Choker, and will indicate a reversal of initial assumptions. Chris Van Wyk uses a retrospective viewpoint as well as the motif of a train journey in Relatives to tell the story of a young writer and the encounters he has with fellow commuters. The essay will demonstrate how the use of humour can lead to the story
…show more content…
It is a story about a young man attempting to write a story, he has preconceived ideas on how to write and follows a “writer’s manual” and the “litmus test” (an acronym he created on how stories should be written). Ironically, he has decided his first never will be a family saga. The irony is made clear when the protagonist’s three friendly travelling companions get off the train, leaving him in an ominous environment with the two brothers with “dark, brooding eyes and thick pouting lips”. The reversal of the protagonist’s initial assumption of the brothers comes with an unexpected discovery when the one brother asks: “are you not Aunty Ria’s child – grandchild?” This note of relief makes him feel more comfortable and explains the irony of him trying to write a family saga (the story is about a story of a twenty-one year old man who is trying to write a family saga on a train and ends up meeting ‘family’, making this story a family …show more content…
The essay has also described what forms the encounters took and how they were represented in the stories. Toward the end of Blankets, there is a revelation where the reader learns the extent of the violence: Chokers fingers escalate from been “grubby” to “murderous”. There is a contrast between the older narrator and the young, inexperienced writer in Relatives. While the young writer tries to use his “litmus test”, the older narrator knows that life cannot be reduced to formulae as it is always full so surprises (such as the two plot
It is a story about a young man attempting to write a story, he has preconceived ideas on how to write and follows a “writer’s manual” and the “litmus test” (an acronym he created on how stories should be written). Ironically, he has decided his first never will be a family saga. The irony is made clear when the protagonist’s three friendly travelling companions get off the train, leaving him in an ominous environment with the two brothers with “dark, brooding eyes and thick pouting lips”. The reversal of the protagonist’s initial assumption of the brothers comes with an unexpected discovery when the one brother asks: “are you not Aunty Ria’s child – grandchild?” This note of relief makes him feel more comfortable and explains the irony of him trying to write a family saga (the story is about a story of a twenty-one year old man who is trying to write a family saga on a train and ends up meeting ‘family’, making this story a family …show more content…
The essay has also described what forms the encounters took and how they were represented in the stories. Toward the end of Blankets, there is a revelation where the reader learns the extent of the violence: Chokers fingers escalate from been “grubby” to “murderous”. There is a contrast between the older narrator and the young, inexperienced writer in Relatives. While the young writer tries to use his “litmus test”, the older narrator knows that life cannot be reduced to formulae as it is always full so surprises (such as the two plot