Once starting to read The Canary- Colored Caravan of Death, I learned the author was the child of two English teachers. The author also tells how her house doubled as a funeral parlor. When reading these bits of history about the author can see how she became a cartoonist, and developed her cartoon. In the cartoon the story is told about the father of a young girl who ends up ending his life. I believe the the author used death in her cartoon because she grew up around death. In the beginning the father and daughter are together in a dream. The dream consist of the father missing the sunset, the ironic part is the father ended up dying two days after the dream. So the ironic part is the father missed seeing the beauty of the world, his life was like the end of the sunset dark. Overall I feel the author used the sunset to resemble the darkness the father was hiding from everyone in the town.
The story then later tells how the area where the family as living was shut out from the world. The reason for being shut out was route eighty was paved causing their house to be in the middle of nowhere. The reason I believe this was described in the story was, the father felt alone. This possible leading to the father ending his life. Possibly if he had others around him he would not of felt so different. In the end I feel if the family would have been more open with each other the outcome for the family would have been different. I believe the father should have set a better role modal for the family and teach them to be open about their problems. The author mentioning they were like artist having their own pursuits, I believe the creativity would of been so much powerful with them feeding off of each other.
I really enjoyed reading your post. I got a better understanding of the different techniques the author used in this story such as the sunset and death and everything. When I first read the story I had no idea what was going on. I read the first page and was okay, but after that I was so lost. I tried reading it over and over but found myself just putting it down anyways and working on something else Ha! I agree when you said the father should have made himself a better role model for his family. Its hard growing up in a house where you're kind of off in our own world while the rest of your family is doing their own thing. I have a situation a little like that.. not as extreme as this story of course. It was truly a gloomy story. I like reading happy stories with good fairy tale endings.. I'm a hopeless romantic type of reader and movie watcher. Overall, I enjoyed reading your post about this story and got a lot of new information out of it that I never realized before. Thanks! (:
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