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The Beet Queen By Louise Erdrich Analysis

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In this excerpt from “The Beet Queen”, by Louise Erdrich, Mary and Karl Adare give the impression as diverse characters. The passage explores their retorts to their surroundings in the environment and of their perspectives around them during the time of depression. Erdrich uses literary devices such as tone, imagery combined with juxtaposition, selection of detail, and point of view to convey the impact from the environment. Erdrich expresses, “And then, either to protect himself or to seize the blooms, Karl reached out and tore a branch from the tree.” The passage consists of a hopeless tone as Karl slashes off the branch. He pays no attention to his surroundings, and later that year, Mary notices the blossoms persist absent. The environment causes Karl to act illogical in helplessness for what is left to come for him. As well, the …show more content…

The speaker and the reader become distanced due to the speaker not drawing from past experiences or biasness towards a description. Overall, the view of the passage becomes easily understandable as the speaker elucidates from Karl and Mary’s experiences. Again, the descriptive details remain evident between the siblings as Erdrich describes Mary as “short and ordinary…and practical as the rest of her” while Karl possesses the qualities of “his mouth was sweetly curved, his skin fine and girlish”. The point of view contains and unbiased quality which later helps the reader to understand the different effects on each child. If the point of view came from Karl or Mary, the personal influence of their surroundings would refrain more to readers. Overall, Erdrich contains an assortment of literary devices in the excerpt of “The Beet Queen” to demonstrate the influence that the environment brings about on the siblings. Although the impact of specific events reveal dissimilar due to Karl and Mary’s variances, change portrays

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