Comparing Short Stories 'Herbie And The Reckoning'

Short stories often explore relationships of power. “Herbie” by Aboriginal writer Archie Weller and “The Reckoning” by Margaret Yorke are two short stories based on relationships of power set in country towns. Margaret Yorke writes about an elderly couple. In this story the husband is dominating () the wife and leads to the death of the couple. Archie Weller writes about an Aboriginal boy who is dominated by a group of school children which leads to the death of Herbie. Clear synopsis of both plots but don’t forget you have to STATE THE TOPIC: Short stories often explore relationships of power. I suggest you start with these words, Brett.
The themes presented in these two stories include that racial discrimination is never acceptable, the
Archie Weller writes about an Aboriginal boy, one of two Aboriginal families living in town. Archie Weller gives a description of Herbie as being poor: “All Herbie wore, summer or winter, were a pair of dirty blue Levis and an old t-shirt”. Weller also describes his house as being a “Dark dirty house” with a “Rotten, grey doorway” He also describes the ute as “The battered old ute of many colours” and the old unused chook shed as ?. This gives the reader an insight into the type of underprivileged or poorlifestyle Describe it!that Herbie lives. Yorke writes about the elderly couple as a retired couple living in a country town. Yorke’s story of a domineering husband is of an elderly man named Maurice who dominates the wife Ellen. This story unlike “Herbie” is based on abuse of power about a couple that are in a relationship where the wife wanted to get revenge. Discuss each story separately. Yorke writes about the person receiving the abuse where Weller writes about the people getting the
Discuss each story sepatately.
“Herbie” was written is way that the reader was to feel sorry for Herbie. In the story Herbie doesn’t show hatred to anyone. It even says that he loved the little kids and the little kids liked him. Herbie was in touch with nature but wasn’t that bright when it came to schooling. The author goes through a lot of positive aspects of Herbie. With the story about Ellen and Maurice it was written one sided. There was no mention of the good side of Maurice, once they were married. So how come it was hard? for the reader to feel sorry for Ellen when she was plotting to kill her husband. Confused.
In both stories no one wins or ends up better. Herbie dies and the boys who teased him felt guilty and remorse. When Maurice died Ellen thought she had the upper hand until she was stung by wasp and the only person that could save her was Maurice.
Both stories show hatred and dislike towards the other party. In “The Reckoning” the hatred has been built up over the years and the author suggests that Maurice is to blame. In the other story “Herbie” the author does not suggest that there is any cause to harm Herbie. Racial discrimination plays a big part in this