In this short story “Pakistani”, it tells us of a little Pakistani girl who gets picked on because of her race and culture. She’s new to the school and hasn’t made many friends yet. She is alone but wants to be part of the oneness she sees before her in the playground. She gets asked to play by another girl but it goes on to tell us of the discrimination of the little Pakistani girl.
The little Pakistani girl is seen as strong, patriotic, quite shy and, although the story does not tell us, attractive. She is strong to not let the other children get to her when they were calling her names. She shows respect for her country and people and also the country she is living in. She is shy to not join in with the other kids to laugh, scream and kick without a care in the world. She wants to be “part of the wave” and “to be drowned in an ecstasy of movement”. When she gets asked to play by the short and plum girl, she is excited that she is part of the crowd and not just the one person. She is part of the ‘sea’ that has been created by the other children. The other girl who asks her to play is a “short and plump” girl “with round glasses and wispy brown hair.” You get the feeling that she’s nice
The playground is the perfect setting for this kind of story as its one of the most frequent places where you would find similar stories to this one. It sounds quite dull and grey with no exciting features at all. The Pakistani girl hides in the corner, watching quietly, ‘the waves of the sea’ hoping and praying that the other kids would ask her to join in. In this what sounds like a drab and dreary playground, she runs around in all the corners kicking and screaming until her legs give way. For being a different race and colour she gets called ‘Darkie!’ and the other children chant and scream this along with ‘Pakistani!’ She keeps wondering why she is ‘labelled’ differently just because she looks different. When this happens, she is like a seashell drifted out from the sea, in isolation again as she was in the first place.
One of the themes of this short story is loneliness. She is the new girl in the school and has not found any new friends yet. She watches timidly like she was afraid of being hurt so she builds a transparent shield around her. She gets hypnotised into wanting to join in but is scared and shy. When they call her names and pick on her, it’s a purposeful task of making her feel alienated and lonely. Although loneliness is one of the themes of this two page short story, I think
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