Since taking my multicultural literature class I have been cognizant of the insider and outsider authorship, and how others may view stories when written by someone outside the community. My question does it matter if the author has done extensive research and she or he is sensitive to the culture, dynamics, and political environment during the period of the book was written? In the case of the book The Boy in The Striped Pajamas, I would say yes it matters. The focus of the story is on the boy whose father is exterminating the Jews and not on the Jewish boy and his plight. While the story is viewed from both boys perspectives the book focuses more on the boy whose father is the Nazi Commander putting the Jews to death.
Even at the end of the story when the reader knows that both the boys died in the gas chamber the focus is on the Nazi father and their family who still looking for the son. For Nazi Commander not to make the connection between his son’s clothes at the fence and his missing son is ridiculous. While I understand that the book wants the reader to look at the story from a different perspective, I find it difficult in this situation because the senseless slaughter of the Jewish people cannot be compared to the loss of the Nazi Commander's son.
I would be interested to hear Dr. Shictman’s perspective on this book.
With that said, I am moving onto another book that I found intriguing because of the characters in the story. Ed Young translated a Chinese fairytale called Lon Po Po, in America, the book would be titled Little Red Riding Hood. What is intriguing about this story is that there are three daughters left at home alone while the mother goes off on an errand. The girls are told not to answer the door—they do and the story ensues. The girls defeat the wolf on their own without the help of a male character.
What really makes this story interesting is that in China a household with one girl is unusual and to have a household with three girls would be unheard of. From personal experience I know that girls are considered second class citizens. My brother and sister-in-law have adopted my two nieces from China. One they adopted at nine months and the other at 10 years of age. Each niece was living in an orphanage. They had been abandoned by their mothers as infants. Most households reject the female baby if she comes before a male is born. The Chinese philosophy is that the son will take care of the parents as they age. Another law in China is that each household may only have two children unless special permission has been given, this is for population control. So for the Chinese fairytale to have three sisters as the heroes in the story and be living in one household is very clearly making a statement against government regulations designating how many and what sex the children are in a household.
