The girl is disliked and isolated from her friends in school because of her occupation and supposed ‘smell’. The plot is disturbing because of the message it conveys. What would have been lost if pigs were not a part of the narrative ? The depiction of these characters in the story reinforces the idea of the pig, as an animal who is ‘unclean’ and dirty. The personality of the girl is commendable and constant throughout, showing someone who is strong and doesn’t waver with the reactions of her classmates, and is one of the positive aspects of this story.Ī stereotypical representation, that also gets stretched into denigrating ‘pork eating communities’ is the depiction of the pig as he follows the girl everywhere and also a group of pigs shown sprawled amongst the ‘puu’.
The girl has a ‘don’t care’ personality, especially against the isolation she is subjected to by other classmates, and is followed around by a small pig and a fly (emphasizing the ‘dirtiness’ of someone belonging to that occupation).
#BOOKWORM FEELGOOD MANUAL#
The central character is a young girl, whose family is involved in the occupation of manual scavenging. While the author may have thought that this was a clever play on words, the insider knowledge that is needed to realise that ‘puu’ means flowers and also excrement, limits the audience drastically, and makes a central aspect of the book very open to misunderstanding, and misinterpretation. As such the entire illustrations that are meant to depict excrement are depicted as pink flowers. Meant to be a play on words, the word ‘puu’ means flower in Tamil and also sounds like the english word ‘poo’ which means excrement.
The flowery illustrations cover all the indecency of this occupation from the eyes of the reader. Much smiles and claps end the story on a happily ever after note. Through a heroic act of rescuing a puppy from ‘puu’, she earns the friendship/appreciation of her other classmates. The book narrates the story of a girl, who is part of a community of manual scavengers, and her experience and interaction with the other children in the school she attends.
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