We the Animals Critique - Essay Example

The narrator is a resilient character emotionally. For instance, he is not worried about the challenges his family is going through such as his father’s drinking problem and the conflict between his father and mother. The narrator is also a humorous character. This is evident in the sixth chapter after graduating into adulthood, but he still remembers the joys of brotherhood that make him wish to be young again. The brutal treatment and a true portrayal of many families as presented in the novel depict that the narrator is a real and considerate person concerning contemporary life experiences.

The ending scenes in the last chapter create a nostalgic feeling in the audience’s mind. This is evident in the scene where the narrator speculates into the future tense telling the readers, “soon they’ll drop out, they’ll skunk around in basement apartments with grown men who keep pet snakes in glass aquariums” (Torres, 2011). A scene from the last chapter also distances the audience from the flow of the storyline. The narrator says, “Look at us, see how I made them easy” (Torres, 2011). This scene presents a stylistic device that likens the writer’s story to his real-life experiences. Additionally, a part of the novel also seems to be missing in this scene. This is the part between “Niagara” and “The Night I Am Made”, which describes the narrator’s sexual orientation and violence unfolding from his family. Comparable to his brothers at beginning of the story, the readers are voracious and are left in a melancholic mood of wanting to know more about the left part.

I feel that Torres would have created readers’ anticipations to satisfy their reading appetite when he follows up this debut with a second appealing novel like We the Animals. This book touches real-life experiences of many individuals as presented in different scenes. For instance, the hardships these boys went through are the extreme versions of what most of the readers remember about their childhood lifestyles. I was personally touched as to whether I should drop everything and try to write a mix of poetry, memoir, and fiction myself to reflect on my early childhood experiences in writings after reading through this novel more than twice. The appealing style, for exampleб “like a cup of maple syrup made from ten gallons of sap, that everything else starts to sound loose and slack” (Torres, 2011), reminds me of some of my favorite lyrical nonfiction books such as The Luminous and Sui Generis Memoir by nick Flynn.