Monday, September 21, 2009

"Time and Again"

Breece D’J Pancake’s story, “Time and Again” is a short story about a man who kills people and feeds them to his hogs. It takes place in the Appalachian region, in winter months, where there’s a lot more woods and trees then there are people. Pancake had the narrator talk in somewhat of a vague way so if the reader didn’t read carefully, they might not even pick up on the subtle clues of the story. At first I didn’t even catch on to what was going on in the story until I did some research online about it. “I told him not to go and look, that the hog’s just squeal when they are happy but he went and looked. Then he ran off someplace.” Later in the book the old man told a hitchhiker that it was when his wife died that his boy ran off. These subtle clues came together to give the reader a better idea of what was going on. He also seems to have flashbacks where he counts how many people he killed when he was in France, back in his army days, but because of the first person point of view the old man does not come out and say, “I have flashbacks.” If it was written in third person the writing style would be straight to the point and the narrator would have to tell the readers when flashbacks were occurring. The point of view is crucial in determining the tone of the story. I believe that Pancake made the right decisions writing this story. I also believe that the story is best told the way it was, in first person, because this way the old man can give small hints and only reveal certain information at certain times.

Sites I used

http://papercuts.blog.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/breece-dj-pancake-at-55/

http://www.learner.org/interactives/literature/read/pov1.html

4 comments:

  1. I also agree that the story should remain in first person. Like you said if it was in third person everything would be laid out for us and it would not have the same meaning that it posses in first person. I like how you also got reference back to his army days and how he had a hard time remembering how many men he killed. I also caught that he liked to do it as well because he made reference to the boy how easy it was to kill a human, by snapping there neck. Which then made you believe he was the killer of the other hitchhikers.

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  2. I agree with what you are saying about the first person narrative. If it was in third person, it would have been boring. The first person narrative gave more of a mysterious perspective and allowed the reader to think for themselves about what is actually going on.

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  3. I am one of those people that read through the story and thought, "what did I just read?". You're right, if it was in 3rd person it wouldn't have given off the right tone or mood of the story. You did a great job with the research and interpretation!

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  4. Ok at the risk of sounding redundant I also beleive that the story was best in first person. I like how you said it enables him to let us know certain information at certain times. I absolutely get that and it just makes it that much better.

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