What would you do with a choice assignment? Well, I am going to speak more about characters. This analysis will be much less thorough examinations of their personalities and their lives and much more about what kind of speaking and person is behind the narration within their chapters. The point of view will be our main focus and these include first and third person. A lot of the style in the novel, which have already talked about, has to do with each main character individually, this is much less like that.
The first person to speak:
As the main character and first introduced to us, Leo Gursky plays an old man unwilling to be unseen. His sections of the novel are narrated through series of flashback having to do with his past. Things that appeared to be major happenings in his life, such as the war, Nazi's, and his love. All of these things are described with different attitudes, but his most important which carries throughout his narration is honestly and confession. Through these events Leo opens up to the reader and that is viewed by him as a shortcoming, but to the reader as a refreshing trait.
The first person to venture:
The other very important character in our narration is a "young" girl named Alma Singer. A girl that was abandoned through death, and through pain. Living without both her parents because of the death of one and raising her brother because the moment her father died, her mother truly did too. Alma's sections of the novel are a bit different than that of Leo Gursky's. In her sections Alma is telling her story much more like an adventurer. More like when Columbus sailed through the ocean and then wrote about it. Her sections are more fast paced and overwhelming. She tells a lot of things, in a lot of ways, in some very short chapters.
The third person along the journey:
A lot of these chapters are narrated in much more of a hesitant way, like the narrator is trying to tell us something very important, but cannot bear to say it. The narrator is very withdrawn and detached throughout his narration, almost as though we are watching him from the outside. I cannot say much about this view because I am having a hard time with understanding it myself. So at the moment, I will learn more and fill you in. Hopefully I begin to understand what we are watching form the outside.
I was just wondering if you've really developed any emotional "connections" with the characters? For some reason I was not able to connect very well with the characters in this book. I never really got attached to them. I found their dialogue interesting but never really felt like I was there experiencing this with them. Even though the many narrators in this book make it so unique, perhaps having so many makes it hard to connect with them? What are your thoughts on that?
ReplyDeleteI had a really hard time connecting with the first person aeration as told by Alma and Leo, I had a lot easier of a time connecting to Mr. Singer where it was third person because I felt more like I could experience reading what happens to him over his shoulder more
ReplyDeleteThe third section is quite a bit different from the other two, as it provides the history of the novel. The key is to consider how the outside perspective offers us a lot of information and Leo and the book that we wouldn't otherwise be able to get.
ReplyDelete