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Brownies Short Story Theme

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In the story, “Brownies” by Z.Z. Packers the two main characters created different and clear ideas that shape the story. However, these two characters are oppositional of one another but carry the central theme to the story. With racism and human cruelty as the theme in the story, Laurel is our narrator and an observer in the story, her opinions and emotions are felt by the readers and acts as a flat character protagonist to Arnetta. It is notable that the character, Arnetta is very forceful and manipulative much the opposite of the frequently overlooked and ignored, Laurel. This Group of brownies came from the south suburbs of Atlanta where whites are “real and existing, but rarely seen...” (p.518). This groups impression of whites consisted …show more content…

Arnetta and the rest of the Brownie group were silent for the remainder of the camping trip, but on the bus home turn out to be different. Arnetta again instigated the troop in making fun of the troop 909 by quietly exaggerating movements of them, without laughing aloud. The Brownie group knowing the white girls were delayed still mocked them feeling temporarily retribution because they were white. Arnetta as an instigator of cruelty and Laurel as a narrative observer of opinions and emotions has shape the story of racism and human cruelty even with no negative intent. Laurel carries the story to the end with, a noticeable pattern with her father and the Mennonites. She relates to the brownies group reaction to the mentally delayed white girls’ troop that human being seek deliberate cruelty against another to feel momentary superiority. The desire of retribution has no

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The main idea of this entry is about the stereotypes that come along with racism. Also, Brent Staples wants his readers to realize how much colored people sacrifice from their normality in order to fit in with society, in hopes of not being attacked or offended. The author proves this in his entry by mentioning ‘innocent’ behaviors, such as singing Beethoven, that he did in public in order to relief those surrounding him from danger. Moreover, the author compared hikers to the country’s bears in order to provide readers with a valid connection between black and colored people. In addition to that, Brent Staples uses flashback as one of his techniques when sharing with us his encounters with white people, this gives readers an idea of how

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The plot of the short story, “Brownies”, by ZZ Packer, is of a troop of young girl scouts who are of African American descent. The story depicts them attempting to brawl with another group due to the “brownie” troop assuming another called them a particular insult. Whether the other troop, Troop 909, in called the others a racial slur is left to ambiguity, although it is strongly suggested that they did not in fact refer to them in an invective manner. When the other troop is confronted about it, it is discovered that Troop 909 simply consisted of mentally disabled girls all in one group. Due to this, it is only fitting that the theme of the story was to indicate individuals with disadvantages in life should rejoice and unify rather than combat

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Being that the troop was from an all black neighborhood and attend a segregated school, the only thing they know about Caucasians are the things they saw on the television about them and what they parents said about them. In the beginning of the story, Arnette stated that the girls in troop 090 smelled like wet Chihuahuas to members of her girl scout. Arnette never smelled a Chihuahua before nor have she ever seen one. What Arnette said to describe what the troop smell like was a stereotype use to describe what Caucasian smell like. Since she is not around much Caucasian she is saying then based on what others told her.

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