The story “Superman and Paula Browns New Snowsuit” by Sylvia Plath, explores the themes of bullying, growing up, war, illusion vs reality and betrayal. The story follows the life of a young American girl who thinks she is above everyone else, but when involved in an oil-slick incident and is used as as a scapegoat, she realises life isn’t all as envisioned in her head. This story is written in the third person by the author. In the story there is a very relevant theme of growing up which is explored thoroughly by the author. The short story follows the life of a girl who feels her games are cooler and better than everyone elses, but reality hits her when she is asked to join Paula Brown’s game of Chinese tag and everything goes terribly wrong. …show more content…
The narrator is invited to Paula Brown’s annual birthday party, this year they went to see snow white, a pretty innocent film for children to see. All the children were disgusted when a war picture began playing before the film. The war movie was about Japanese prisoners who were being tortured by having no food or water. This made the narrator feel extremely sick and disgusted that things like this actually happened in the world. This caused the narrator to have a nightmare about the film. “As soon as I closed my eyes, the prison camp sprang to life in my mind, and again the groaning men broke the walls, and again they were shot down as they reached the trickling fountain”. This is a part of the theme of growing up because the narrators mum has sheltered her from seeing such things, so as she’s getting older she’s realising that the world isn’t all she thinks it