The Boucherie By Stephanie Soileau

Oscar Leon
Professor: Ron Waddy
English 1B
March 10, 2017

The Boucherie: Multi-Cultural Acceptance

The Boucherie is a story by Stephanie Soileau, that centers in Cajun community that deals with multi-cultural acceptance. The author employs plot to convince the reader of this theme. In the story, Khalid is a kid from Sudan, that moves to the Cajun community and is constantly experiencing rejection by the local residents. The community that is present in the story is a representation of modern American communities. Fixtures existing in both the story and in contemporary societies, reaffirms the reader of the idea of the struggle for multi-cultural acceptance, one event that emphasis this theme is when Alvin says to Claude “I'm telling you,

After hauling each heavy piece of furniture from truck to house, the mother and son, both so small and narrow, stood panting in the driveway while the little girls picked at acorns on the ground”. The author emphasis how much struggle they had while moving to the new home. Although Alvin felt sorry for them, he was not able to help them. The author exposes the idea of struggle with multi-cultural acceptance, by stating how, "Della stayed informed about them and their funny ways”, which can be interpreted as a rejection from Della to their customs. The author uses exposition to explore few of the characters' points of view towards the Nasraddin family, helping the reader to connect to the theme by providing context to the story. Exposition can also make the reader relate with few of the characters, which make the story pleasant to

The author mentioned the following: “One or the other of them (Alvin or Slug) knew almost every resident within a four-block radius, many of whom would be invited to share in this lucky blessing from the Lord”. However, by chance the cow end up with the only family in the neighborhood that was not part of their community, and “Alvin wondered if the Nasraddin could be trusted”. Apparently, he didn't know if they will go against the community, after all they haven't been attentive with them, from Fatima's point of view the cow didn't belong to the community, and the text confirms this when Fatima tells them: “I saw on the television!” and later states “We will not call tonight”. Although Alvin and Slug try to convince her to let them take the cow to his garage by inviting them to eat, Fatima knows that at long-term that wouldn't make a difference, for which she proposes something else: “If you want to share, my son must kill her with a knife.” The reader interprets this sudden change of mind as a plan to not just let them eat with them but to be part of their community, by having his own son slaughter the cow the community won't see