Friday, September 9, 2011
Cooper's "The Slaughter of the Pigeons"
Cooper's "The Slaughter of the Pigeons" is excerpted out of a full-length novel, yet it manages to stand alone as an effective denouncement of avaricious human practices towards innocent non-human residents in a community (in this case, the pigeons). How is it that this few-page piece can stand by itself, when you don't even know these characters or their histories? What tactics does Cooper use in this brief episode to tell you a significant amount about these characters' traits and this community's general attitude about animals and about themselves and their rights?
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The attitude of the town is showed by the pure mass of everyone participating. Cooper described a scene of massive slaughter carried out by virtualy everyone in the town and no one aside from Leather-stocking showed any form of hesitation. This makes the reader infer that the town has a sort of short tradition that is part of their lives so no one questions it. Then when Leather-stocking expresses his disgust he is answered by Billy Kirby saying that the pigeons ravage their wheat fields to justify their actions. This shows that the townsfolk think of the pigeons as nothing more than pests that can be food, and that their rights and happyness means more than the lives of these animals. The community has no concern for wild animal rights until Leather-stocking evokes their consious by lending a different perspective of what they had done.
ReplyDeleteCooper shows the community as a whole expresses a dislike of the pigeons by describing a slaughtering of the pigeons. The people of the community are relentless and hateful towards the pigeons because of the pigeons destroying the wheat fields. The people do not consider that the pigeons are defenseless or only think of having food. The pigeons don't realize they're are causing harm, whereas the people of the community purposefully inflict harm. The community does not care about animal rights only themselves. The history of these characters does not need to be known to understand this excerpt which is why it can stand alone.
ReplyDeleteCooper is very descriptive throughout the article. It is easy to see the character traits possesed by the people in the story even though it may not have been the first time the book mentioned them.
ReplyDeleteAs an educated audience, we can assume parts of the community's characteristics. Specifically, she uses stereotypes to describe the characters so that this little article can be understood in a novel and the article.
ReplyDeleteCooper recognizes that characters do not exactly need proper histories in order to function in a story. Just by illustrating their actions and their reactions to a justified response is enough to make the story stand on its own.
ReplyDeleteBy using this portion of the novel it wasn’t important to recognize the personalities and characteristics of the characters. Some information was noted at the footer of this excerpt but even that was unnecessary in keeping the characters generic. Her tactic was using moral feelings of fictitious/real character to portray a negative perspective on killing of the pigeons. This is the same concept of Saturday morning cartoons that have subliminal moral messages. “And knowing is the half the battle” –GI JOE
ReplyDeleteIn this piece, Cooper shows how a community comes together to destroy another community. Although it is not an entire story on it's own, it is a story within a story. This section that is taken out of Cooper's full story can stand on it's own because it has all of the major parts that it needs. It has characters, a definite beginning, and a definite ending. In the story, we see that one community has come together to destroy another community that they see as being detrimental to their society. In this, the community goes out all together to kill as many of the pigeons as they can without any idea as to what they are going to do with them. This shows that the community does not care about the birds or what they are going to do with them, they just want to kill off a pest without looking into the future and the effects that it might have.
ReplyDeleteA word I saw in a lot of the postings was "community". Now how does Cooper characterize all the people involved in the story? Easy, they are linked through common activities, ideas, and location. So instead of thinking of it as many individuals vs many animals (pigeons), the conflict is determined to me one vs one, thus simplifying what could be an infinity complicated relationship web into an easy-to-understand story that stands on its own.
ReplyDeleteCooper's "The Slaughter of the Pigeons" stands alone for the numerous writing strategies effectively used in a small piece. In just a few pages, Cooper uses multiple anecdotes, hyperboles, and even some quotes that i think are the most effective. Because the quotes are directly from the hunters themselves, there really cant be too much writer interpretation; it is what it is. So when the speakers show what they think through these quotes, it is truly what they think.
ReplyDelete- Paul Muegge-Granholm
In the story, the people have a strong hatred for the pigeons. They let this hatred influence them to go to extremes as to perform a mass extermination of the pigeons. As readers, we do not need to fully understand the characters or their histories because Cooper did not intend to write the story about the characters, but more about the characters actions and conflicts. This piece stands by itself because of how harsh the conflict is with creatures that have done nothing to the people besides doing what is in their nature. Cooper highlights the moral conflicts and at the end he brings in an opposing view that brings up the injustice of the situation. Cooper uses descriptive surroundings and dialogue to illustrate to the reader that the setting could very well take place in a rural community with farmers upset about their crops getting ruined because of the pigeons. This brings reasoning for the conflict. Also, he uses the "righteous" character in the story to imply that most of the people in the community do not care to respect the animals and they have the idea that their rights are more important than others'.
ReplyDeleteThe excerpt from the book works as a stand-alone piece because it tells a smaller story within the larger one. Many novels are written like this in the beginning and the reader is forced to pay extra attention to what is happening in order to catch up on any backstory left out by the author. It immerses the reader in the situation and gives him/her enough information to swim.
ReplyDeleteAs for what tactics Cooper uses to display our characters' attitudes, it would have to be emotion. In the story, the characters are very animated. Exclamation points fly around as often as commas or periods. Emotion is a great tool because, even in real life, our only true personality and character shows during emotional times; whether we are excited, grieving, or downright furious. Emotion shows us who we really are, and it does the same for the characters in Cooper's story.
Because the piece is an excerpt, readers do not need to know specific histories of the characters. Cooper provides that the characters follow general stereotypes, which is enough for the audience reading the portion of the novel. The attitude of the community is demonstrated by the masses gathering to end as many innocent lives as possible.
ReplyDeleteThis excerpt can stand by itself because the story of the massacre of an animal species is common throughout history. It's the message being conveyed, not the characters histories, that's important. Cooper uses descriptions of the characters actions and what they say to show their traits. Cooper uses Billy Kirby to tell us about the pigeons and how the community shouldn't care about how many they kill.
ReplyDeleteCooper uses readers emotions to persuade them into believing her ideas. This pigeon story has such an impact, because the pigeons can be used as another animal species. Such as the killing of the American Bison.
ReplyDeleteCooper shows that the entire community will willing to participate in killing the pigeons. This shows that no one in the town is really against what they are doing. Cooper basically uses stereotypes to show the character's traits and their attitudes towards killing the pigeons.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that you don’t know the characters or their histories doesn’t matter when reading this few-page piece by Cooper. This is because the focus in this excerpt from the novel is human interaction with the environment, not the interaction between the characters themselves. Cooper employs several tactics to tell the reader a great deal about the characters, the community, and their attitude. Cooper’s main tactic is to present a situation (the slaughter of the pigeons) and show the reactions of the characters to that situation. The various characters’ traits and the community’s attitude are revealed through their reactions. The townspeople are portrayed as thoughtlessly killing hundreds of pigeons with no real reason except for sport. To them, the pigeons are useless animals and they’re joining in the fun. Then there’s Leather-stocking, who kills just one pigeon and then rebukes the townspeople very strongly. Leather-stocking sees this mindless slaughter as wasteful. The Judge, perhaps out of guilt, then calls off the slaughter. By analyzing the characters’ reactions to the situation, one learns a significant amount about them and the community’s general attitude.
ReplyDeleteCooper uses many little anecdotes and metaphors to help with his message that is very effective. He also uses very few words to get his point across. He uses stereotypes to have people relate to those killing the pigeons. Pigeons were seen a useless so to those killing it was getting rid of the waste.
ReplyDelete