【文章內容簡介】 ce gradually made Piquette uncovered through the striking parison of the two extreme characters, which gave readers great shock and sense of tragedy. For Piquette, marrying a white person is the only way to blend into the mainstream society, and also the only way to live a life with dignity. When she announced with great joy that she was going to get married with a white boy: “All the old bitches an’ biddies in this town will sure be surprised…a very tall guy, got blond wavy hair. Gee, is he handsome. Got this classy name. Alvin Gerald Cummingssome handle, eh?” “I” saw that her defiant face, momentarily, became unguarded and unmasked, and in her eyes there was a terrifying hope. [3] Her sudden enthusiasm made me embarrassed. Confused about her great change, I could only guess how great her need must have been, that she had been forced to seek the very things she so bitterly rejected. [3] Her desire for love and sense of belonging was greatly parative with her coldness four years ago. Piquette’s Hopelessness After the Failure of Marriage Piquette’s marriage is doomed to be a failure. “My” mother said, “either her husband left her, or she left him”. It can be guessed that they fell in love with each other in the beginning, and he was attracted by the Indian girl’s wild beauty and great energy, while Piquette also desired the true love with the white man. This marriage was unusual in the mainstream society. Her husband either could not bear others’ mock and pressure from society, or looked down upon Piquette’s shortings because of her lack of family education, above all, he abandoned her at last. Pqiuette did not obtain welloff, happiness and sense of belonging that she had been looking forward to. On the contrary, she suffered more coldness, discrimination and humiliation from the white people. Her unyielding character made her escape from the miserable marriage. People will bee psychologically abnormal, even twisted when the basic needs can not be fulfilled. [5] After the failure of marriage, she came home with two babies and brokenheart. She’d put on an awful lot of weight, and she looked a mess...a real slattern, dressed any old how. She was up in court a couple of timesdrunk and disorderly. [3] Clearly，she became pletely hopeless after the failure of marriage, living a life as her father and grandfather, just like a walking body. At last, she died in a big fire with brokenheart and hopelessness. The cruel life destroyed her vulnerable dignity, and the cold society broke up her fragile dream. She woke up in sufferance through marriage, but ended herself with hopelessness. In the story, Piquette’s character changed greatly with ups and downs. Her plicated character is vividly depicted by simple words and distinctive style, which is one of the most successful aspects in the description of characters in The Loons. Symbolism in The Loons Symbolism is the biggest feature in The Loons. There are two clues in The Loons, in which one is Piquette’s destiny, and the other is the destiny of the loons. The loon, as the second clue of the story, is closely connected with the direct description of Piquette. In other words, the loon represents Piquette, and the loon is a symbol of Piquette. Symbolism in the story is showed in three aspects: the symbolism of the environments, the symbolism of the spirit, and the symbolism of the ending. The Symbolism of the Environments The Canadian loon is a kind of living creature that got close to extinction. They originally lived in the primitive forests, like Diamond Lake. But with the development of human civilization, nature is gradually destroyed, and the primitive forests are in danger. When “I” went to Diamond Lake for the first time, it was in a favorable condition, but was used as a resort. Many villas and piers had been built, and large pieces of lands were occupied by humans, so the loons were forced to move to the deep place of the forests. These special birds were afraid of humans, so they appeared only at nights, “rising like phantom birds from the nests on the shore, and flew out onto the dark still surface of the water,” with “ululating sound”. [3] When “I” came to Diamond Lake again after getting the news of Piquette’s death, the loons had been marginalized to an extreme extent. Diamond Lake had been renamed, and the whole place had been changed into a national park. What was more terrible was that the place had bee very “prosperous”: “the one store had bee several dozen, and the settlement had all the attributes of a flourishing resorthotels, a dancehall, cafes with neon signs, the penetrating odours of potato chips and hot dogs.” [3] The lake seemed the same as it had always been, but “the longdrawn cry, half mocking and half plaintive, spearing through the stillness across the lake” had disappeared. The loons finally failed in fighting against human civilization, losing their home. “Perhaps they had gone away to some far place of belonging. Perhaps they had been unable to find such a place, and simply died out, having ceased to care any longer whether they lived or not.” [3] Nevertheless, Piquette and the Metis nation had lost their home, too. What they lost was not only the lands, also the spirit. [6] At the beginning of the story, Laurence showed their marginalized conditions. The Tonnerres lived in an undeveloped area far away from a Canadian little town, almost in a primitive condition. But around their “shack” were “wooden packing cases, warped lumber, discarded car types, ramshackle chicken coops, tangled strands of barbed wire and rusty tin cans”, [3] showing the great strike of industrial civilization to their life. They lived among the modern industrial civilization, and their own aboriginal culture was gradually assimilated. “People can see their nests just up the lake shore, behind the logs.” “That evening I went out by myself, scrambling through the bushes that ov