“I looked at its face and I knew it was a girl and my mother said, “This is the way it ‘s done,” and she fisted her other hand waited and I could hear the chattering of the sparrows from the box.”
In “Mr. Green” by Robert Olen Butler the main theme of the story is the acceptance of death. In this passage, the narrator has her first unpleasant experience with death. She watches something she cared for die in the hands of her own mother. Also, the narrator deals with her grandfather’s death and her childhood fear of not being able to take care of his spirit. This seems to create an unhealthy obsession with death, making the narrator a little neurotic. At the end of the story the narrator actually ends up killing Mr. Green herself in a similar way to how her mother killed the sparrow. Throughout the story the narrator goes from fearing death to, aiding the act herself. Death if not properly explained can truly twist the human brain. Along with that if the value of life has not been explained or been encouraged to cherish, death can seem a lot more daunting.