Raymond's Run Literary Analysis

Words: 660
Pages: 3

“Raymond’s Run” features Hazel, a tomboy who is a serious runner. She has a special needs brother who she cares for named Raymond. Hazel does not conform to the expectations of society, she isn’t afraid to show her hard work, will not dance around a May Day pole, and she prefers to fight instead of talk like other girls. She is running in the fifty mile dash in the passage, it gives incite about Raymond, Hazel’s mother and father, and Gretchen, another competitor in the dash. Two feminist critics reviewed “Raymond’s Run” and wrote “A family Tradition” and “Overview of ‘Raymond’s Run’” but one critic had a more developed and stronger claim then the other. “Overview of ‘Raymond’s Run’s claim was that Hazel grows as a character to become a strong, …show more content…
There is a whole paragraph about Hazel’s father, a faster runner than Hazel, it explains how her father is not present during the story but Hazel aspires to be him and motivates herself before racing by thinking “you can beat your father up Amsterdam if you really try.” The use of organizing each supporting character into a paragraph is so that the critic can fully explain all points and ideas they have about that character in a certain space without confusing the reader with going back and forth. The “Overview of Raymond’s Run” was not executed in an organized manner so it confuses the reader with so much evidence and points in each paragraph that the critic does not fully explain each point and the reader may not understand claims with lack of support. When explaining that Hazel rejects the traditional feminine role they did not mention when she did not participate in the May Day pole event or when her mother forced her to wear a “strawberry” costume to a pageant as a little girl when she “didn’t have no better sense.