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The Outcast

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The Outcast The character archetype of the outcast is described as a figure that is banished from a community for some crime (real or imagined). “The outcast is usually destined to become a wanderer” . Society often times shuns people deemed different, making them feel like an outcast. This can be positive or negative, depending how the individual reacts to it. Being viewed as an outcast could inspire a person to resist popular opinion and encourage them to do great things in their life. While for others, it could cause them to retreat within themselves, preventing them from living a happy life or even causing their death. The archetype of the outcast in represented in the story “The Red Convertible”, by Louise Eldrich, through the …show more content…

He is an outcast. “All around me are familiar faces, worn out places, worn out faces” shows that he views everyone else as the same but himself as different. Everyone is going about their everyday business and the narrator doesn’t fit in. He is an outsider looking in on life. Not allowed to participate because of some perceived crime on society. We can only guess what the crime might be, but this song tells us the impact it has had on this man’s life. It makes him sad and the lyric “hide my head I want to drown my sorrow, no tomorrow, no tomorrow” shows how desperate the narrator feels. He sees life as not worth living anymore and is looking for an escape. “The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had” confirms that he is suicidal. He wants to end the pain. He further suggests that he has felt like this since he was a child. “No one knew me, no one knew me, Hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson, look right through me, look right through me” . As a child he was different, perhaps from a poor family. Even adults viewed him as an outcast, looking right through him as if he wasn’t even there. Being seen as an outcast has encouraged the narrator to write this song, to share his experience with everyone maybe even helping some. In conclusion, each of the characters described earlier were outcasts, even though their personal outcomes are different. In the story “A Red Convertible” the character Henry is outcast from society when he

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