How to Pronounce Knife
Who is the main character in the short-story, Paris?
.
.
Red is the main character in the story "Paris." She is a Lao immigrant who works at a chicken processing plant in a small town. This story is about assimilation into a white-dominant society; Red believes that if she gets a nose job like many of the other women at the plant, she may be moved from the factory line to the front office. Red is also insecure about her looks, believing herself to be too unattractive to consider the town's only other employment opportunity—a strip club. She compares herself to the white beauty standard appreciated by her boss, Tommy, and finds herself lacking. However, when she witnesses Tommy's wife Nicole catching her husband cheating at the end of the story, Red feels grateful that her looks preclude this sort of situation from happening to her.
Paris