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
