Hi I really need help on this question. will u help me? ?

Question

ok well in this book im reading there is question i dont quite understand. in the book The Light in the forest...the indian is telling a story of how many indian children were killed. What is the effect on the reader of repeating the names of the massacred Indian children? Explain? i was kind of thinking to see how many were killed but... there has to be a better answer. .thanks!

Answer 1

The book is, essentially, the story of a white child, stolen by the Indians, and brought up as one of their own (True Son). Eventually, as events unfold, he is finally rejected by his indian father and banished as an enemy. True Son is the real loser in all this. The indians are reputed to be savages with a reputation for killing children, personified in the later stages by an indian carrying a child's scalp after an attack. However the white settlers were just as barbaric, if not worse. The reason that a list of the dead is given is to personalise each victim. If he had said 'Twenty children were killed' then it would merely be a statistic but by naming them he has made each of them a real person to the listener. If I said to you 'I have seen a man' it would convey little but if i said 'I have seen John Smith' then immediately there is commencement of identification as you picture John Smith in your mind.

Answer 2

You tend to respond more emotionally if something is named.  It becomes more real to you rather than just a generic object or being.  This is why if you bring home a stray animal that you don't plan on keeping permanantly, people say not to name it.  once you name it, you get attached.  The write is probably trying to evoke emotion in the reader by giving the reader a sense that these children could be real.  They have their own individual names.  The writer wants to make sure that the deaths of these children matter to you.