Be Nice To Her - Essay

“Be Nice to Her“- is the title of the short story first published in Canada 1984. The title is an often mention quote in the short story. The quote is a recommendation that the 8 year old main character, Elizabeth, received from her mother. A recommendation that quickly escalated to a request, and finally an order as she kept disobeying her mother. She failed to adjust to the order her mother had commanded due to many regular fears that the mind of a child can have - the primary ones in this case being: Group pressure and the fear of one day becoming the victim.
The author, the narrator and the main character is the same person, her name is Elizabeth. Elizabeth was kind of chubby and in addition to that she wore glasses. The nickname, sucky, had sticked to her ever since kindergarten because she enjoyed sucking her thumb. She had reached the third grade, and the mild form of bullying had died out over time. Luckily for Elizabeth the chances of getting picked on again was very slim - an even chubbier, shorter girl with bigger glasses was in her class, her name was Celia. Besides not having the ideal look and personality to fit into her third grade class, she was also diagnosed with diabetes (at this point in time an incurable disease). Her class mates didn’t want to play with her during recess, only if she agreed to be the ender when they were skipping. After school the other girls didn’t want to walk with her, they always outran her. They didn’t want to let her into their community. To summarize - Celia’s life was not a walk in the park.
An obvious question rises. Why would Elizabeth attend in keeping Celia outside their group, when they actually had many things in common? The answer is simple, she didn’t have a choice. It was either Celia getting bullied alone or both of them getting bullied together. Like most other children would have done Elizabeth choose option one. The very idealistic idea of a middle school class that an adult can have, where the community is working like a well-oiled machinery, is very difficult - if not impossible to achieve in reality. There will always be somebody that craves attention so much that he or she is willing to exploit easy ways to get what he or she desires. On the outside the bully seems confident and therefore other children just follow the leader. That way they also ensure that they don’t end up as the victim.
In the end of the short story Celia had a big enough hearth to forgive Elizabeth’s terrible actions (She had assaulted her in rage), even though she had been kept out of the community. Elizabeth concludes the short story: “I was never able to forgive her. She made me discover a darkness far more frightening than the echoing culvert, far more enduring than her smooth, pink face.” This ending must be understood in a figurative sense. Celia made her realize what a horrible person she had been. Looking back Elizabeth can see what a kind and forgiving person Celia really was. There was nothing that made her deserve the treatment she was given - taking her illness into account it is almost ridiculous how much more she deserved. The author, Elizabeth, is very ashamed of her actions as a child.
The text is written for a very large target audience, ranging from the children at middle school, the teenagers at high school, the young adults at college, to the adults on the labor market. Bullying is going on everywhere. Anybody can relate to this story, but many people should certainly learn from it. The clear moral of the short story is “Don’t bully or leave persons alone outside the community”. The author hopes that people who read the short story will learn from her mistakes. The mistakes she didn’t learn in time to make it up to Celia (she passed away due to diabetes at the age of 19). Therefore she tries to make it up to other people who are getting bullied around the world instead.