Little Figures Essay Questions

As part of my Creative Writing coursework I have written a short story entitled ‘Little Figures’. Little Figures is a story that revolves around the major theme of homelessness, and follows three sub-themes throughout; trafficking, government control and helplessness. My aim in exploring these four themes was to gain knowledge of homelessness as a global issue. My purpose was to inject this knowledge into my writing and pass it to the reader, in the hopes that they will realise the seriousness of the issue and want to help towards the decreasing of the homeless population.
Little Figures was a product of three drafts, the first draft being in script form. I wrote the first draft of Little Figures under the influence of ‘Tennessee Williams’s’
My wish to make the story fast-paced came from the influence of ‘Delphine De Vigan’s’ ‘No and Me’. No and Me is a short novel that embodies homelessness with short paragraphs and a fast pace that keeps you hooked and interested in the plot, that quickly climaxes to a cliff-hanger. I wanted to take influence from De Vigan’s structure to hook the reader and leave them wanting more with a cliff-hanger, the purpose of the cliff hanger is for the reader to research more into the issue and see how they can make a difference. Like No and Me the fast pace of Little Figures gives the reader a hectic vibe which mirrors how disordered Homeless is, and makes the reader put themselves in a homeless persons shoes.
The title ‘Little Figures’ is self-explanatory play on words that expresses the high extent of control the government have over us. I chose the title to symbolise a feeling of society being a chess board with ‘figures’ that the government are controlling. This represents that the government control us and place us where they want, for example on the streets. The title is important as I wanted it to ignite the reader’s societal thoughts, so that they begin to realise the corruption of