Compare and contrast the narrators from the stories "First Confession" by Frank O'Connor and "Forbidden Fruit" by Fazil Iskander. Remember to include

an in-text citation after each piece of evidence, even if the evidence is paraphrased.

The story First Confession is about a little boy named Jackie who is faced with his upcoming first confession and first communion. He is scared by his sister and Confession teacher, because they tell him about how bad hell will be. Based on what he has learned from  these two he tries his hardest to avoid going to hell and he is made to believe that confession is the decider of whether he goes to hell or not. He has committed quite a few sins recently in his life because of his grandmother who has newly moved into his home. She causes rifts within the family and he is in the middle of it all. The author uses humor throughout the story to teach the reader that confession while it is a serious matter is not as scary as they make it out to be.

A Muslim family lives in Russia during the civil war in the story Forbidden Fruit. Although the story has a significant religious component. Loyalty is a major topic that is not apparent until the very end. In the narrative, a brother and sister are dining with Uncle Shura and Aunt Sonya, who are also family friends. They are prohibited from consuming pork due to their religion. This is not the first time that Aunt Sonya has had pork for dinner; nevertheless, the siblings typically turn it down. This particular evening, the sister eats the pork. Her apostate status gives the brother leverage over her. One night the siblings father gives them notebooks and the boy boiled over when the notebooks are shared equally and tattles on the sister. The father punishes the son and is in disbelief that the son would betray his sister.

The grandma who recently moved in and is the source of all these issues is first described by Frank O'Connor.  Although he provides the reader with a realistic description of her, he also creates an odd impression of her.  She had a chubby, wrinkled face and wandered around the house in bare feet,  much to the chagrin of Mother, who said the boots had rendered her disabled.  (page 147)  In order to establish the tone for the story, he used slapstick in this instance.  Similar to this, the author of Forbidden Fruit makes fun of the father's punishment of his son for  spying on him by using slapstick humour. My father grabbed me by the ears and shook my head to prevent it from falling. "Father grabbed me by my ears, shook my head as though to make sure that it would not come off, and then flung me to the floor." (page 262) 

In First Confession, Jackie is appalled by the grandmother's behavior and this is right around the time that he must do his first confession. At one point, she makes dinner for him and his sister and he hates it so much he hides under the table with a butter knife to protect himself from the people trying to make him eat the food. The boy's sister used this situation to scare him. While she is taking him to the church to do confession she says, "Do you remember the time you tried to kill me with the bread-knife under the table?" (page 150) here is an example of satire where the sister is ridiculing him for his actions. While the boy awaits his turn he sees an old man who is mumbling prayers before his confession. The old man appears to be just as scared as Jackie and thinks to himself he must be in the same predicament. The author uses this opportunity to use witty humor by comparing the old man's situation to Jackie's troubles with his grandmother. "...muttering aspirations in an anguished tone, and I wondered had he a grandmother too." (page 151) In Forbidden Fruit the author uses a mixture of witty and dark humor to describe how the boy thinks about the leverage he has over his sister. At the dinner table while the sister is eating the pork the boy speaks about his actions as he watched her, "I only smirked, a hint of the retribution to come." (page 258) Here lies one of the main problems the father has with the son, he turns against his sibling instead of covering for her. Later in the story the boy realizes he can have fun with his leverage by scaring his sister. "I discovered that keeping her on the verge of exposure was even more fun than exposing her right away could possibly be." (page 260) This is another example of some of the dark humor the author uses.

These instances throughout the narrative have demonstrated to Jackie that he need not be afraid of confession. First Confession showed the reader that, despite being a serious matter, confession isn't as terrifying as Jackie had been led to believe. Through the course of Forbidden Fruit, the author employed comedy to lessen the evilness of the boy's cunning deeds. Even though the novel had started out fairly seriously, by the end, the author utilises humour to mock the kids' fervour for their religion. While religion is highly essential, the author wants the reader to understand that there are some other matters that should take precedence.