Comparing Ellison and Silko
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In comparing and contrasting "Lullaby" by Leslie Silko with "A Party Down at the Square" by Ralph Ellison, it is very apparent that one of each of the stories' main themes is racial relations involving minorities. In both short stories, the focus is around a main character which is of a minority group: in Ellison's story, the minority the story focuses around is black, while the minority group being portrayed in "Lullaby" by Silko is a Native American. I will show how similar these two stories are on their mistreatment of minorities.
One example of how these two stories are similar in their concept of race is how in both stories, there are points at which the minority is being wronged, and the majority, instead of being disgusted at the moral aspect of the injustice, are appalled at the mere physical aspect. In "Lullaby," this happens when Ayah is in the bar; standing by the stove drying off while the bar full of Spanish people, the majority in the situation, became silent and stared at her. "They looked at her like she was a spider crawling slowly across the room. They were afraid; she could feel the fear," (P 1021). Ellison mentions how her face is very wrinkled and how white her hair is. Her facial characteristics and the way she moved about while in the bar is what scared the whites in the bar. They felt no sympathy that she was an old woman walking around in the freezing cold up to her knees in snow, they were only worried about their own well beings due to her demeanor in the bar...