In a great number of stories or novels, literary devices are the most significant components. Faultlessly utilizing literary devices can shape a perfect and successful story. Those devices include characterization, conflict, and irony. In the short story called Paper Menagerie, the major characters are Jack and his mother who both have Asian descent, and the author complied a lots of external and internal conflicts between the different characters for indicating the racial discrimination that two Asian characters suffer in the story. 3 different types of conflicts which reflect the racism in the story are “Man VS Man’’, “Man vs Society’’ and “Man Vs Himself’’.
One of the aspects that indicates Asian character undergoing the racial discrimination
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After Jack moves to a new house with his family, there are two women neighbors come by to welcome them. When they see Jack, they say a bunch of mean words privately. They say, ‘Something about the mixing never seems right. The child looks unfinished. Slanty eyes, white face. A little monster” (Ken Liu,2). These two women can be considered as representatives of a group of racists in US. Their thoughts also show the thoughts of racists. The mean words said by two women strongly reflects that how ugly and lowly Asians are in racists’ s perspectives. In addition, after Jack fights with Mark, he says, ‘‘Mark is popular at school. I never want to think again about the two weeks that followed’’(Ken Liu, 4). During the conflict between Mark and Jack, Mark is the one who insults Jack and his mother, then destroys all of Jack’s paper animals. However, many of students still choose to take part with him instead of Jack. This phenomenon shows the unfair treatment and discrimination that Jack experiences at school.
The final aspect that reflects the racial discrimination can be found in the conflict between Jack and himself. After being insulted by Mark, Jacks changes his attitude towards Chinese and Chinese culture. He starts to think everything related to Chinese is odious. “He looked into the mirror. I look nothing like her, nothing’’(Ken Liu, 2). From this quote,