Literary Analysis Essay on 'The Semplica Girl Diaries'

Introduction

Wealth has grown to be a great symbol that defines a society. 'The Semplica Girl Diaries' is written by the father of the girls. He narrates the chronicles of the life his family up to the events that lead to him winning a lottery on his daughter Lily's birthday. The short story shows how our expectations, in reality, are not always met. The story is based on a trip taken by a family who has various expectations in the world. The story takes an outward look of the lifestyles they expect to live in. The narrator feels that the people around them lack individualism and are copy cats as they value materialistic objects rather than life. The father makes various choices based on the best practice. The paper seeks to explore the choices opined by the narrator in a thematic manner. The themes include violence, immorality, wealth through literary styles such as irony, symbolism, metaphors, imagery etc.

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As mentioned in the introductory paragraph, violence is a choice picked by the narrator. Violence is seen by the wealthy people who chose to carry out a cruel practice of taking girls from third world countries who found themselves in undesirable situations and took them in as slaves. Moreover, they took the girls and hang them by their heads at the front yards of the wealthy people. They were degraded into lawn decorations made of human beings. Extravagant fountains and lavish rosebushes were replaced by the enslaved people which is ironical as they were deemed useless yet they held the topmost regard. The excessive display of wealth was expressed through this. The narrator is seen justifying to choosing to practice such violence because everyone in the society did it. Eva rebukes him and is shocked that just because everyone carried it out did not make it be right. The narrator choice of practising the violent act is ironical as it shows he is not humane enough to see the violence meted against the poor girls.

Wealth is another theme opined in the diary. The wealthy people are seen to go through a lot of trouble just to make people sentient about their wealth. They go to even more extreme lengths to maintain these standards in society. The slave owners had normalized the art of hanging the slaves as artefacts on their lawns. They used the slaves to show their power and wealth to the less fortunate. When he won the lottery he made the choice of showing his wealth by throwing a lavish party for his daughter as a sign of showing his wealth. Symbolism is seen through the acts as it shows life in reality, how the wealthy use their money for things that are luxurious by showing off their wealth to the rest of society. The excessive display of their wealth is in the form of imagery as it shows how they look in the outside rather than the inside.

Immorality is construed through Eva as she points out what is being done to the Semplica Girls is not morally acceptable. The father chose popularity instead of morality and integrity. He was ready to act as the other wealthier people. The Semplica Girls were not popular due to their good skills in being the best slaves but by being lawn artefacts for the rich in society. The rich were compromising the morality of being humane towards the slaves since their popularity came at the cost of their integrity according to Eva's explanation. It was not morally acceptable to hang the slaves as mere decorations since they had come to these foreign countries in search of jobs, better living standards than what they were used to. Lack of morality symbolized the kind of community that existed since they had no value for human life. They compared them to simple artefacts that could be hanged outside to show off their wealth.

Conclusion

In summary, it is clear that violence, wealth, and immorality are part of the themes opined in the short story and they relate to the reality of the current world. In today's reality, people chose violence over good acts, showing off one's wealth rather than helping the poor together with practising immoral acts. People are more inclined to show who they really are on the outside rather than the inside. It is, therefore, necessary to think of the other person's feelings before acting on anything.