Superman and Paula Brown’s New Snowsuit and The Darkness Out There Essay Example

of the story is about Paula Brown, and her new snowsuit. The story also ends in a highly unpleasant reality.

The narrator, whose name never appears, but the language in the text suggests a young female child, often enjoys made-up games about Superman, and often sees her uncle in this superhero persona. The lack of identity for the character is a common device, often used to allow the story to relate to a broader audience, or for the reader to be able to empathise with the narrator better.The unknown identity of the child also opens the story to an adult audience, who are able to see the injustices felt by children when a dispute gets out of hand, and how the child was forced to lose her innocence. The child is blamed for incident which occurs while she is playing outside which classmate, and an apparently disliked girl slips in an oil slick, and ruins her new snowsuit.

The narrator is held responsible for this by the child, Paula Brown, and by the other children, and her own friend is ready to blame her.There are many themes to the story, of fantasy and reality, of scapegoats, of man and Superman, and, perhaps most importantly, of material possessions, and human values. Although the narrators uncle, who is compared to superman through much of the first part of the story, is unable to prevent the accusations, but helps her come to terms with the outcome, and to teach her that in the adult world, many people are forced to take responsibility for things they did not do, and how little the value of truth often is.The story

uses explicit comparisons and also implies many meanings. Some of the similes used suggest strong feelings, while others are more ambiguous. The beginning world in which the child lives in is later shown to be a fantasy world, where superheroes are like her uncle, ad where little harm can befall her.

This is shown by the fantasies of Superman and only brief mentions of the ongoing war.However this is later replaced by more definite occasions of violence and upset, while the narrator describes the fantasies to disappear "like the crude drawings of a child". There are also some suggestions of the child originating from Germany, or having German family, which may be a reason for the readiness of the others to blame her, as Germans were often scapegoated for WWII, in America.