Literary Article Review: “The Lost Boys” by Sara Corbett”

When reading this article, I could not help but be completely sucked into the story simply because of the emotion it caused me to feel. The tone of this article was very somber and matter of fact to me. The simple fact that the word use in the article was rather descriptive. The use of imagery for some of the things that were described were done in such a way that it was very easy to create a mental picture of what was going on with the subjects of this article.

As far as a major theme for this article, I personally feel like it would have to be perseverance. I say this because no matter what these poor boys went through, they just kept pushing. It was all about survival to them. At one point, the article states, “the boys endured attacks from the northern army and marauding bandits, as well as lions who preyed on the slowest and weakest among them” (Corbett, 594). Even though these boys went through all of this, they still continued on their journey to get to a better place.

All of the elements of “The Lost Boys” make it seem strikingly similar to the short story “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” written by Sherman Alexie. The tone of this story was also very somber in my opinion and I also feel that the use of imagery was very similar and equally effective. In this story Alexie’s character Jackson Jackson proves his perseverance by not giving up on reclaiming his grandmother’s regalia even though he cannot help himself by spending almost all of the money he comes across. He tells his police officer friend “And, besides, I’m on a mission here. I want to be a hero, you know? I want to win it back, like a knight” (Alexie, 379).

-Steffanie