Michael Richards

Just Like That is a short story written in 1987 by Michael Richards. It’s about a man and a boy, whom are out shooting kangaroos. The purpose is transforming the boy into a man. The story takes place in Australia.
Language:
The language is easy to read and understand. There are some direct speech but mostly it’s storytelling.
Narrator:
It’s a third omniscient narrator from the boy’s point of view. We know how he feels and what he thinks about the events that are happening.
Themes:
Growing up. Pressure: the man pressures the boy.
Characters:
The boy is on his first kangaroo hunt, I believe. Read: p. 25 l. 40 – p. 26 l. 2. He seems very fascinated by how easy it was to kill the kangaroo. When the boy uses the rifle it’s like he’s dead for a second – read: p. 26. l. 24-25. He can’t remember pulling the trigger. At first I don’t think the boy likes shooting kangaroos but later he becomes this sort of machine, which just does it.
The man might be the boy’s father, we don’t know that. The man puts a lot of pressure on the boy. When he wants the boy to do something he says: if you can’t do it now you never will. (Ex. p. 26 l. 17)
Symbolism:
The man in the story says several times: don’t walk behind me. I think that he knows what it does to a person, when they start shooting. I mean, the boy gets really fascinated about it, and how easy it is to kill another living being.
Ending:
Read: p. 29 ll. 18-21. We don’t know exactly what happens, but I kind of get a feeling that the boy shoots the man. The man has been pressuring the boy through the whole story to shoot the kangaroos. And now, maybe the boy got tired of him and shot him. The boy says several times that he wasn’t aware of him shooting, so it could be his mind which pulled the trigger at last.
Message:
What goes around comes back around. The boy has grown up in a violent environment and all he has known is his father shooting kangaroos. Maybe that’s why... [continues]