Mr. Green - Book Report/Review Example

EWRT 2 WEIYUAN FENG 10/17 In "Mr. Green" Butler uses relationship between a grandfather and his grandchild (Narrator) to develop sexual discrimination of Vietnamese traditional religion. The novel’s narrator "Mr. Green" is a female Catholic, who believes that men and women should be equal. However, her grandfather, a Confucius believer, looks at males as more valuable than their female counterparts. "When my grandfather told me about the birds plucking out the eyes of the dead and about the possibility of our own ancestors, our own family, suffering just like that if we ignore them, I said: Dont worry, Grandfather, I will always say prayers for you and make offerings for you, even if Im a Catholic.

You are a girl, he said” (Butler). It is obviously that the narrator does not agree with her grandfather’s idea that only boys can make offerings to their ancestors. She makes efforts to prove to him that she can say prayers for her grandfather. In addition, her grandfather always used “foolish” to identify women in their family. "He nodded towards the door and he obviously meant my mother and grandmother.’Yes, I said. He frowned. How foolish they sound. Chattering and yammering. All the women sound like that.

You dont want to grow up sounding like all these foolish women, do you?’" (Butler). After the death of her, she keeps the parrot alive for him. However, before the end of the story the narrator kills the parrot herself, I think this means she refuses to bow the sexual discrimination, and she want to break the old rules of traditions that "Men can do everything that women cant." (Butler). As a result, the narrator believes that in the absence of the parrot, she is still able to pray and make offerings to her ancestors as well as to her grandfather as a Catholic.

I think that could be identifying as her way to protest the sexual discrimination. Works Cited: Butler, Robert Olen. "Mr. Green" http://www.deanza.edu/faculty/swensson/green.html. 10/6/2012