Mr. Green body paragraph - Essay Example

Mr. Green In "Mr. Green," Butler uses a parrot to develop the theme of transcendence. One of the main characters of the story is Mr. Green, a parrot that outlives the grandfather of the narrator who is also the man who caught the parrot from the wild. As a result, the words the parrot uses and the ways in which he expresses himself mimic to a great degree the girls grandfather. There is an example of this relatively early in the story when the grandfather refuses to move from the north with the rest of the family because he is afraid the ancestors will not be able to move with him. "Mr. Green says that, too.

What then? he has cried to me a thousand times, ten thousand times, in the past sixteen years." Although the grandfather is concerned that the ancestors will not be able to move south with the family, the narrator proves that they can move as far away as New Orleans by bringing Mr. Green with her to the United States. "My children teach him English words. He says all these things, but without any feeling. The Vietnamese words of my grandfather, however, come out powerfully, like someone very strong is inside him.

" As he nears the end of his life, Mr. Green begins to imitate the grandfathers death, which took six months for the human man. "Parrots are very smart. Mr. Green in particular. And he knows more than just my grandfathers words," the narrator says, going on to describe how the parrot has not only adopted the grandfathers disapproval of her chatter but also his appearance in the naked chest with the slack skin at the throat. Although she never had her grandfather in the United States, the narrator feels she has had him with her in spirit in the form of Mr.

Green and she continues to pray for his soul even after Mr. Green is dead. In this way, the parrot becomes a symbol of transcendence. Works CitedButler, Robert Olen. “Mr. Green.” A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain. New York: Grove, 1992. Print.