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Tiger By Child


            The story, "The Child By Tiger" written by Thomas Wolfe, is primarily interpretive literature, not escape literature. "Escape literature" is written purely for pleasure, while "interpretive literature" is written for pleasure and to help us understand the world around us. Interpretive literature educates, asks questions about life and presents some aspects of life that we may not want to face. "The Child by Tiger" is interpretive literature because of the way the author presents the story, the way it ends, the way it educates us, and especially how it helps us understand man's darker nature.
             This work is interpretive rather than escape literature because of the way the author presents the story. Thomas Wolfe has the protagonist looking back on the events that occurred twenty-five years earlier. Even though he has had a very long time to reflect on them, he is looking back in the hope that he can make some sense out of it all. The author uses this situation to his advantage. On the second page of the story where the author writes, "He had, he said, only recently received his discharge from the Army", shows that the protagonist is second guessing what Dick Prosser had said. This reflective outlook is a good position from which to teach the audience. The reader learns about death the same way as the protagonist. This is an ideal way to catch the attention of the audience and to educate them at the same time as the protagonist, which is a characteristic of interpretive literature.
             Another reason this story is interpretive is the way it ends. In "The Most Dangerous Game," which is an example of escape literature, the reader is left with a playful ending and has the opportunity to decide if Rainsford becomes the hunter or if he just leaves. No such ending is left in "The Child by Tiger.".
             In addition, the story does not end with the death of Dick Prosser. The author wants to impart a sense of the after-shock on the reader and introduces characters who brag about being part of the hunt, and the fact that Prosser underlined a particular portion of the Bible indicated that the act was premeditated and that Prosser knew that he would soon be "walking through the valley of death".


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