In "Hiroshima," Nam Le tells the story through a first person narrative. The narrator not only vocalizes the action, which advances the plot, but also his/her thoughts, which informs the reader about the narrator's opinion of what is happening in the story. Dialogue in the story is told without quotations, and this blends all the conversation with the action in the story as part of the narrator's collective experience. The story has a range of short and long sentences, but the language used is simple, especially in the shorter sentences. For example, the narrator says, "I look away from her. I look down and see my face in the shiny wood. It looks half-asleep" (1). This fits in with the narrator's age and develops her character as a young child who makes lots of observations about her surroundings. The narrator also often repeats what other characters say and what the radio says, which agrees with the idea that the narrator is young and constantly absorbing others' actions and words to learn about the environment.
No comments:
Post a Comment