Discussion

The exam question also requires you to discuss how conflicts between parents affect their children, taking your start point in the short story “Okeechobee” by Claudia Zuluaga.

As you have seen, the story is told by a child narrator and is about an episode which illustrates the conflicts and tensions between her parents. As a result, the narrator and her sister’s attitudes depict the effects of such parental conflicts. The sister is taciturn and does not react against her parents, but against the narrator: “My sister isn’t talking to me. Not one word. She gives me the silent treatment whenever they fight.” (ll. 9-10)

Unlike her sister, the narrator tries to be detached at first. However, both the narrator and her sister cannot help but feel responsible for the conflict between Dorabelle and E...