Analysis Of The Strangers That Came To Town

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There are various definitions of what freedom means. Each individual has his own understanding of the word freedom. Freedom is having the right to experience your opinion and to live life in a manner consist with your beliefs and interests without judgement from others. Many people may say that freedom is about being accepted as well. This understanding of freedom is demonstrated in the short story “The Strangers That Came to Town” by Ambrose Flack. In this short story the author uses direct and indirect examples characterization throughout story to demonstrate how freedom is about acceptance of others and acceptance of oneself. It is through the narrator’s evolving judgement of the Duvitches, Mr. Duvitches acceptance of hardship and …show more content…
For example, he and his brother and mother watched the Duvitches move in “with rather mixed emotions. For the Duvitches were immigrants and the first of their nationality to settle in our small smug town” (Flack 1). Without giving the Duvitches a chance to show their personality, Andy and his mother judged the Duvitch family because they were different from the town people. Andy displayed further disrespect when he poisoned the fish at the lake. However, when the Duvitches invited Andy 's family for dinner after Andy made amends by catching the fish, “ [He] couldn’t believe they were the same timid downcast youngsters one met on the street and saw in school; they seemed to have been touched by a wand. The Duvitches’ home was their castle: sustained and animated by the security of its four walls, shut away from a world of contempt and hostility, they were complete human beings. In their own house their true personalities emerged” (14). When Andy 's family visited the Duvitches he realized their true personality, and that his judgment of them was wrong from the beginning. He realized they were kind, caring and loving human beings and that just because they are poor did not mean they were undeserving of respect. The author shows the reader through the …show more content…
The Duvitches demonstrate resilience, humility and generosity that impress change in the ways others see them. After the Duvitches house was hit by the mid-March hurricane they moved into a new neighbourhood. The narrator revealed an insight about their accepting behaviour when he stated, “... the Duvitches were quiet--almost solemn. They showed no elation at finding themselves in a new neighbourhood and a very pretty neighbourhood at that” (1). Regardless of the bad conditions the Duvitches had been through, they accepted their lot without blaming fate or God. After Andy and Tom gave Mr. Duvitch the fish, Mr. Duvitch, “...seized our hands and bowed his head over them. There was something Biblical in the man’s gesture” (12). Mr. Duvitch demonstrated his astonishment and humility at the gesture of kindness and acceptance from the narrator’s family. Not only were they in his home as guests but they treated him and his family as equals. The narrator later developed an admiration for their resilience in terms of their great suffering when he observed how they could cope with life’s inevitable pitfalls and setbacks, “ ...with their old-world wisdom and gift for accepting the inevitable,”(17). The characterization of the Duvitches impact

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