Two characters analysis in Packer's Geese - Essay Example

Geese2 Topic: Two characters analysis in Packer’s “Geese” 308289 The one word to describe Dina is ‘combustible.

’ The entire story is about the coping strategy of Dina. Dina’s cherished dreams do not come true; she looks out for other avenues, to forget the pain-giving experiences of life. She now wishes to try her luck in Japan where she hopes to amass wealth, within the quickest possible period. Well to say, live life in its trials, tribulations, duty and beauty. But when it comes to practical applications, the unforgettable incidents of the past continue to haunt the inner core of an individual, who has faced the wrath of the society on many counts.

Dina is one such individual, who has to cope up a number of maladjustments. She finds it difficult to trust anyone unconditionally and she is suspicious about everything. The scene for Dina shifts to Tokyo in this story. She lives with a group of young people who are jobless in Tokyo. They face slow starvation, and reach a situation where they share in one grapefruit and banana between five people. “The all-knowing arrogance of youth” is subdued by hunger. How small issues can take the grim turn—Dina alienates her roommates by eating the last slice of grapefruit.

The thematic ploy in this story is “Asian prejudice against blacks.” The compulsions of living life in odd circumstances, when empty stomach leaves very harsh choices for survival—and Dina prostitutes herself to a Japanese sarariman, the men who liked to proposition black girls, because “Verry chah-ming daaark-ku skin. “What the story tells us through Dina is, the important aspect of life is the process through which one lives it. Success and failures are but incidental factors, the reality of life is one’s approach to the struggles.

In this story one finds the older, experienced Dina, from what she was in the story ‘Drinking Coffee Elsewhere.” She is in Tokyo with young company with persons like Ari, Petra, Zoltan etc. Being unable to find work through the normal channels, she invents a trick to eat and pay the rent. “She left with a wad of yen. While riding the tokkyuu she watched life pass, alert employees returning to work, uniformed children on a field trip. It all passed by — buildings, signs, throngs of people everywhere.

" — Ayesha Court. ‘Geese’ continues the somber mood, but with an almost surreal edge to it and a host of memorable if not necessarily fully-realized characters. “Exploitation” is the word to describe the life of Dina in Japan, courtesy a Japanese! “The store manager, a nervous Japanese man in his forties, brought her to Zoltan, telling him, in smiling, broken English, to keep her at home"(p.203) is the second important character in the story, for he exploits Dina. He can not be condemned outright for what he did to Dina.

He was the individual responsible for the economic rehabilitation of Dina, though not in a respectable way considered by the normal social yardsticks. But Dina by now had learnt that desperate situations need desperate remedies. Dina and her room mates realized that amassing wealth through fair means is not all that easy. When the Japanese man guided Dina to the softer options, Dina was willing. The problem of starvation had to be solved. The backgrounder information prior to her arrival in Japan substantiated the ensuing story.

She had planned the trip to Japan with rosy hopes.She told the people at Baltimore, “she was going to Japan in the hopes of making a pile of money . . . Back home, money was the only excuse for leaving[.]” (p. 210). "Geese," describes "Shinjuku, that garish part of Tokyo where.friendly, toothless vendors sold roasted unagi." Dina must meet the challenge of the historical inferiority complex related to color, which she must overcome. So, this Japanese sarariman becomes her savior. She " .

started the chase anew, Dina realized he was not after the crackers but the geese themselves"(p.206) Dina found quick initiation into her new career, her “limited English permitted, but the girl had enough shyness for the both of them, and held him hack, a frightened smile on her face"(p.205) In this revised version of the character of Dina, Packer traces the changes in the thought process, for better or worse. When the thoughts are changed, the individual’s actions are also changed. When disaster knocked at the door of Dina, the Japanese man enabled her to face the incredibly dire situation.

============ Works CitedPacker, Z. Z. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere: Riverhead: 2003