"The Third Dumpster" - Shannon Walsh (Week 10)

I paid close attention to the presentation of the dialogue in this story. The dialogue is not formatted using traditional quotations, rather it is embedded within the story. "Tell me, he said patiently. Tell me- what choice do we have? Tell me" (340). "Did you really expect me to demo this place all by my friggen self? Asked Morehouse" (341). By embedding the quotes in this way, the narrator effectively speeds up the reading of the story. The absence of quotation punctuation allows the story to move more quickly from scene to scene. The dialogue of the parents in particular, is read exclusively in italics. The parents describe themselves as "Chinese, end of story" (339). "Everything take long time. Long, long time" (344). This technique effectively distances the parents from the rest of the characters in the story, as they are the only characters who receive italics in their dialogue. This distancing gives the parents a unique voice that is different from their sons', perhaps highlighting their worldly, elderly influence, or perhaps their broken English.