The Cariboo Cafe Analysis

The Cariboo Cafe
By, Helena Maria Viramontes

" Children gotta be with there parents, family got to be together together, he thinks. Its only right ".

In Helena MariaViramontes's short story, The Cariboo cafe the kidnapping of two  small  children is perceived through the eyes of not only  the children and the perpetrator, but also the key witness who eventually reports the crime. However what is the most  surprising and unexpected  aspect of the story is the sympathetic light  the kidnapper is painted in The woman who kidnaps the children is not a cold-hearted monster who preys on the weak and innocent. Rather she is a desperate and broken woman who lost her only child in the most tragic of ways. In turn her will to live and enthusiasm for life  had also departed  along with her son.  This is why I chose the quote," Children gotta be with there parents, family got to be together together, he thinks. Its only right", for my analysis.

    The loss of her son and the extreme guilt she feels has destroyed the woman's life. The reader could say in a way the wellbeing of her son was essential t to her happiness. In fact in the story the woman liken raising a child to building a kite. The similarity lies in the fact that i order to raise a child "you must bend the twigs enough, but not too much, for you might break them. You must find paper that is delicate and light enough to wave on the breath of the wind, yet must withstand the ravages of the storm. You must let the string go, eventually, so that the kite will stretch it's ambition." However the crisis the woman must grapple with is the fact that someone has unjustly cut the the physical link she has to her son. This is crisis that the reader also finds in the owner of the diner, who is also still suffering the lost of his son in war . The intimate crisis of losing a family member is also one that the reader observes that  Sonya refuses to undergo through her rigid refusal to let go of her brother's hand. There fore I conclude that the importance of a family sticking together is a main theme seen in the story.