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diff --git a/jones-la/person-qw.txt b/jones-la/person-qw.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..569720a --- /dev/null +++ b/jones-la/person-qw.txt @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +In a short response, discuss how the perspective of the narrator impacts +the story. How does [the shift from 3rd to first person] change the +story? +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Third person reduces O'Brien's proximity to the war and to his troop. +When he talks, in the first chapter, about Jim Cross, he appears to be +a completely unbiased or impartial narrator because most of the +statements he makes are rooted in fact or related to a statement which +is factual ("the things they carry" are often physical objects, and +when they're not---like Cross's love for Martha, they're evidenced by +physical manifests). + +First person narration loses the illusion of an impartial and completely +"reliable" narrator. O'Brien's metanarration on how he doesn't want to +write the chapter "On the Rainy River" or "don't mention---" with Cross +shows that later chapters are more strictly his emotions and how he +perceives himself and his comrades. Some components do remain the same, +however. Mournfulness at Lavender's death is constant, and the war is +treated as a terrifying occasion regardless of the perspective O'Brien +uses. + +Also, in the first person chapters we've read, O'Brien's memories appear +to be less sharp---like his inability to recall exactly what Elroy said +as a goodbye and what he wrote when he was going to drive toward the +border. This may be from the fact that it was a much shorter period of +the time than the war, but it appears that his precise memory of the +components of war (guns, tools, mines, memoranda) are significantly more +pronounced because his memory is less clouded by emotion and repeated +recall in the first chapter. |