Sandra thinks of Mrs Rutter as a dear, sweet elderly lady before she is told about the German plane crash. “A cottage leaf of a woman, with a face below which chins collapsed one into another, a creamy smiling pool of a face”. However you already get the impression that Mrs Rutter is weary and observant, maybe particularly evil ;
“In which her eyes snapped and darted,” “Her eyes investigated as quick as mice”.
Earlier in the story Mrs Rutter talks about her husband dying in the war to Sandra.
After explaining that she left the Germans to die she refers back to when her husband had died in a battle against the Germans.
“That was eighteen months or so after my hubby didn’t come back from Belgium”.
“Tit for tat I said to Dot”.
This shows that Mrs Rutter thought that she had seriously not done anything wrong, as the Germans had allegedly killed her husband it was only right that she killed the Germans to get back at them for what they did. This really bothers Sandra and Kerry because they can see right through her and they know that what she did isn’t right.
After this experience Sandra is a lot more aware of the real dangers that surround her. Also that not everybody’s character isn’t based on their looks. “The darkness was out there and it was a part of you and you would never be without it, ever”.
There are several events the narrator experiences that change the way she looks at the world in “Superman and Paula Brown’s new snowsuit”. The narrator is also a dreamer. She dreams of space adventures and her hero, superman teaching her how to fly. “These nightly adventures began when superman started invading my dreams and teaching me how to fly”. The narrator listens to the radio and builds up her own fantasy in addition. Her own personal hero is her uncle Frank. “At the time uncle Frank was living with us while waiting to be drafted, and I was sure that he bore an extraordinary resemblance to superman incognito”. The narrators naïve beliefs seem to overlook good will over bad and there’s someone that will always put things right.
“He used to pull the wings from flies and the legs off grasshoppers and keep the broken insects captive in a jar hidden under his bed where he could take them out and watch them struggling”. Sheldon Fein was a boy that lacked social skills. The narrator and David used to include him in their games as the ‘evil villain’. Sheldon used to pull the wings of off flies and the legs of grasshoppers and then keep them in a captive jar to watch them struggle. “Sheldon Fein the sallow mammas boy on our block who was left out of boy’s games because he cried whenever anybody tagged him and always managed to fall down and skin his fat knees”. The narrator notices that although Sheldon seemed like a chubby harmless boy that cried at dismal things deep inside he was actually quite wicked aswell.
The narrator’s mum had always been quite protective over her and didn’t want her to know about the wars that surrounded her. When the narrator went to watch Snow White a short movie had been playing beforehand. It showed Prisoners who had been held hostage, and in the film it showed the Japanese shooting the prisoners dead, stamping on them and laughing. It made the narrator so horrified that she stood up, ran to the toilets and vomited up everything she ate, “I stood up then in a hurry and ran out to the girls room where I knelt over a toilet bowl and vomited up the cake and ice cream”. After this event, superman stopped invading her dreams and teaching her how to fly because the thought of the prison camp were caught in her mind “No matter how hard I thought of Superman before I went to sleep, no crusading blue figure came roaring down in heavenly anger to smash the yellow men that invaded my dreams”. This is when she realised that no superhero could come and save her from the real problems out there and also that people can enjoy watching others suffer.
Whilst playing tag with the narrator and a few other children from the neighbour hood, Paula slipped and fell into black oil. Paula quickly puts the blame on the narrator, and the other children from the neighbourhood although knowing she hadn’t done anything wrong join in and blame her for their own enjoyment and amusement “The rest of them faced me with a strange joy flickering in the back of their eyes. ‘You did it, you pushed her,’ they said”. She notices that although they know she hasn’t done anything wrong they’re enjoying watching her suffer, similar to the film about the prisoners. This is another
Part of the narrators experience that changes the way she things afterwards is when her Uncle Frank doesn’t believe her when he hears about Paula’s new snowsuit. Her personal real-life hero (uncle frank) comes upstairs and double checks with the narrator to see whether or not she was lying, “ We’ll pay for another snowsuit just to make everyone happy, and ten years from now no one will ever know the difference”. Her naïve beliefs have changed and as a result of the events she has been through she stops overlooking good will over bad. “That was the year the war began, and the real world, and the difference”.
Sandra and the narrator go through similar situations. Both Sandra and the narrator had fantasy images on what the world was like. They both go through dramatic experiences and they both have different points of view about the world when they’ve lived their experiences. They both have learned valuably from their experiences.
