From ancient time to now, prejudice has always existed in our society. Even though today people are becoming more and more open-minded with the advance of our civilization, they still tend to form an adverse judgment or opinion beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts. This phenomenon is especially very common during and after the period of colonization where people often have an irrational suspicion or hatred on a particular group or race. In the short story "The loons" by Margaret Laurence, which talks about a half-indian girl, Piquette, who grows up under difficult circumstances in a society that suppresses half-breeds, the author uses setting and characterization to show the serious prejudice from the part of white people toward half-breeds.
             First of all, setting is a key point used by the author to show the prejudice that people had toward half-breeds in our actual society. For example, at the beginning of the story, there is a whole paragraph of description on Piquette's home that reveals from a certain level the unjust prejudice toward half-breeds: " Their settlement had been added to, until clearing at the foot of the town hill was a chaos of lean-tos, wooden packing cases, warped lumber, discarded car tyres, ramshackle chicken coops, tangled strands of barbed wire and rusty tin cans"(127). From the statement above, it is evident to observe that this description suggests the kind of poor environment where half-breeds should live in as if they only belong to this poor, dirty and chaos environment. Besides, another example of prejudice would be the expression told by Macleod, the grandmother of the narrator of the story. Her description of the half-breeds as "neither flesh, fowl, nor good salt herring"(127) shows people's common view of the low value of half-breed's life, since this kind of people do not belong to one or another major group. Again, it is obvious ...