Shyashyakook In David Duncan's The Brothers K

The fictional town of Shyashyakook in David Duncan's novel, The Brothers K, cleverly portrays subjects such as culture, human instinct, and environment. Those three topics combined are used to enhance the theme of death and rebirth.Throughout the story one can find countless instances where a character has lost all hope and given up on their dreams, only to have their dreams resurrected and find their hope restored. When Duncan introduces the town, Shyashyakook, he describes a broken down place, once lovely and childishly innocence, that has become a place of full of hardship. But just like the human will, the people from this town continue to pick up their broken pieces and begin again. Including literary devices such as irony and sarcasm that boost the humanistic qualities that Shyashyakook possesses, one can discern that the town is a personification of a human overcoming the inescapable obstacles of life.

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“Industry has come. Industry had gone. It lasted 1/267th s long as the indian village.” Duncan criticizes how human nature strives to attain bigger and better things. This, however, never leaves one satisfied. Ironically, the void of unhappiness cannot be filled by something new. One must fill that void from within. Humans are instinctively power hunger, always wanting to advance oneself. But throughout this section Duncan proposes the question: Is that power fulfilling? The environment of Shyashyakook tells its story of death and rebirth through Duncan's imagery. “...winter floods and mudslides that flushed the river`s spawning beds out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, forcing its salmon to join the Kwakiutl in the Land of the Dead.” Just like humans, the environment must press restart and begin a new chapter in their