Coyote Week Analysis
The story I read this week and decided to write a Literary
Analysis on is Coyote Cooks His Daughter. One powerful literary device that was used in
this story was the use of Imagery. As I was reading this story I could vividly
picture what was going on in this story. I think what helped with this was the
use of repetition. The way they would repeat several words, like “his ears he
twitch-twitch-twitched”. This could have easily been accomplished similarly if the
words “he twitched his ear” were used, however, it wouldn’t create the same
level of imagery. When you are forced to read a word several times, it really
strikes in your head the image they are trying to convey. With all of the repeating
words in this story you can easily understand and picture the story. In this
story, I feel as though there are 2 underlying themes; sometimes you have to do
drastic tasks in tough situations, and actions will have consequences. The most
important theme I am going to talk about is actions have consequences. When
coyote kills his daughter for food, he shows no sign of remorse or no sign of
fear of his consequences. However, his actions in the end have very drastic
consequences. The old woman hears the ghost of his daughter speaking to her,
and she eventually finds the ghost at coyote’s house. She then, without
hesitation, burns down the house to get rid of the spirit. Coyote is still in
the house and she ends up killing coyote, who pays for his actions of killing
his daughter. This may not be her intention, however, that is how it ended up
playing out. The historical aspect that relates to this book his the necessity for
hunting and having food. They do not have food stockpiled in supermarkets like
us, they have to go out and find food and if they can’t, they need to take
drastic measures. This is something we never have to worry about in today’s
society considering everything is completely at our disposal. Although, in this
more ancient Native American lifestyle, it was a necessity to kill for food,
whether it were animals, or even a person.
Hello Evan! I also noticed that fact that there was a lot of repetition used in all of these stories. I was curious as to why the author would use this amount of repetition in these stories but now reading your post I can see that imagery was one of those main purposes for the reader to be able to imagine what was going on in these stories.
ReplyDeleteHi Evan! You did a really great job of analysis, here. I really appreciate how you stayed really close to the text in discussing elements, and didn't generalize out. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteHi Evan, I agree that the moral or theme of the story is that actions have consequences. When the Coyote decided to kill his daughter rather than starve we read that his tail does not wag but he went on without much remorse and prepared to eat his daughter without a second thought. The consequences only came about because the spirit came to the house which makes the woman burn the house down.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy reading everyone’s response to this piece because I read it 2 times and I saw so many differences in each read. Your theme/moral of the story being actions have consequences is one that I thought of as well. It is a gritty read and I find myself wondering why the daughter? It is an interesting read and your response was a really good POV.
ReplyDeleteHi Evan,
ReplyDeleteI too read this story and wrote about it. At first I thought it was very strange and it was hard for me to understand. I do agree that there is much repetition throughout. I also noticed much imagery throughout as they were creating the land they were coming up upon. Your two themes are also accurate, and all actions do have consequences.
Hi Evan, I also read and wrote multiple posts about this story and you did a great analysis on it. You are right about the imagery on has while reading the story and I thought the same thing. Your analysis of the different themes in the story is also spot on. The theme of, actions have consequences is very true and was shown by the result of the father coyote then getting killed in the house fire.
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