【正文】 happened to the birds. Perhaps they had gone away to some far place of belonging. Perhaps they had been unable to find such a place, and had simply died out, having ceased to care any longer whether they lived or not. This sentence showed the ending of the loons directly, also implied the real reason for Piquette’s death. “Having ceased to care any longer whether they lived or not”, it seemed the author’s thinking about the real reason for Piquette’s death. When “my” mother mentioned Piquette’s death, she just said “the shack caught fire”, which seemed an accident. But when not finding the loons for the second time in Diamond Lake, “I” had deep thinking about the destiny of the loons and the real reason for Piquette’s death. It seemed Laurence’s thoughtless writing, but actually imply to readers. For the loons, they could not find a place of belonging, and died out. For Piquette, although she unceasingly struggled to blend into the mainstream society, she finally failed, and died with brokenheart. Besides the three classic examples above, there are also a lot of words in the story showing different meanings, especially the description of the Tonnerres’ living conditions at the beginning. “As the Tonnerres had increased, their settlement had been added to, until the clearing at the foot of the town hill was a chaos of leantos, wooden packing cases, warped lumber, discarded car types, ramshackle chicken coops, tangled strands of barbed wire and rusty tin cans.” [3] Laurence continuously used seven adjectives: wooden, warped, discarded, ramshackle, tangled, barbed, and rusty, describing both their living conditions and their internal characteristics. For example, “warped”, for one thing, it showed the lumber was twisted, for another, it implied that the Tonnerres were psychologically twisted as marginalized people. “Discarded”, for one thing, it showed that the types were thrown away, and became luggage. For another, as a marginalized nation, they were segregated by the mainstream society, in other words, they were discarded and abandoned by the mainstream society. “Ramshackle”, for one thing, it showed the wooden house and the chicken coops were going to collapse, because they had been built for fifty years. For another, it meant that the Tonnerres were downhearted, and they never stove to live a better life. [11] In The Loons, Laurence showed Piquette’s contradictory and miserable life with strong feelings and concise language, revealing the loons’ ecological tragedy, a girl’s tragedy even with constant fight against destiny, and an aboriginal nation’s tragedy in social marginalized conditions.3 The Deeper Cultural Connotation in The Loons By the description of a short story in The Loons, Laurence revealed deep cultural connotation, within which postcolonial feminism and protection of the ecological environment are the most important ones. Postcolonial Feminism Postcolonial feminism is a new academic school springing up in the 1980s, which began as criticism of both Western feminism and postcolonial theory. [12] Postcolonial feminist criticism holds the viewpoint that females were often subjected to what has been called “double oppression”, that is, they were discriminated not only for their position as colonized people but also as women. They must fight against gender discrimination as well as colonialism and racialism. Postcolonial feminists were often regarded as colored feminists. [13] The theme of the postcolonial feminist criticism is to criticize the colonial thoughts, and question the feminism of Western middleclass, observing the difference of women in the Third World, fighting for their rights and interests. [14] Spivak, who was a representative of postcolonial feminism, pointed out that women in the Third World suffered more cultural colonization, and they were the disproof of the patriarchy and imperialism. [15] Piquette’s living plight was presented in “double oppression”: her minority status marginalized by the mainstream society and her female status oppressed by the males within the family. [16] Because of the minority status, Piquette was discriminated in the white mainstream society. Both “my” grandmother and “I” showed prejudice to her in different degrees. That summer, “my” grandmother refused to have a holiday in Diamond Lake because Piquette would go along with us, in that “my” grandmother refused to have any contact with her. “My” mother naturally thought that she had nits in the hair, and the reason why she finally agreed Piquette’s going with us was that she was a shield of the bad relationship with “my” grandmother. Although Piquette was one of my classmates, “I” was neither friendly nor unfriendly towards her. She dwelt and moved somewhere within my scope of vision, but I did not actually notice her very much until that peculiar summer when I was eleven. [3] “I” was bothered and embarrassed in meeting with her, and “I” could not help showing “my” contempt in her inferiority and selfpity in talking. It can indicate that white women of different ages all showed indifference and discrimination to Piquette, who was a person from minority group. Obviously, Laurence expressed not only discrimination the minority suffered from the mainstream society in colonial psychology, but also the deflection of Western feminist movements which were affected by the colonial psychology. As a female, Piquette was oppressed by the males in her family. She had low status in the family, and could not be provided with favorable living conditions. “She had grimy cotton dresses that were always miles too long.” [3] As a thirteenyearold girl, Piquette bore all the housework in her family, along with her bone tuberculosis. After the failure of marriage, Piquette went home with brokenheart, but she was treated with discrimination and coldness by males of her family, like her father and grandfather. She still