The two stories The Shawl and Years of my Birth are completely different but have a number of things in common. They share abandonment, abuse, and characters who are willing to put others before them. These seem to be a common use in Louise Erdrich stories. They have a powerful meaning and leave the readers astonished in the end. For instance, in both stories the characters are abandoned. In The Shawl a young boy is abandoned by his mother who no longer wishes to be with his father. In the process his older sister gets killed and is then told that his mother was the one to blame. This affected the boy highly, for when he grew up he became an alcoholic and a abusive father. While in Years of my Birth, Linda, the narrator, is abandoned at birth