Inquiry into the acquisition of language, part 2: point of view
Now she is learning the language of subject, of a subject acting in the world. I go to school. I like vanilla. Sophie [a doll] feel sad. She is still not so good with the difference between subject and object. Her is sleeping, she will say. Also gender is a vague—inconsequential?--concept. She uses him and her indiscriminately, he and she.
Listening to her reminds me of my own struggles in novelistic storytelling. A novel offers endless choices in point of view and, along with tone, it’s one of the greatest challenges to try to find a point of view that fits with the story’s throughline and author’s intent. (Wow, sorry, that was a dry sentence!) Each offers its own take on the sense we try to make of our essentially random lives.
First person has the power of memory; third person the power of distance, of the space to act more visibly as storyteller. This morning, I am contemplating which one works better for a particular scene, and I’ve sketched out two options—one in first and one in third:
Rachel let me sleep in her bed. She took the couch. I wasn’t going to school anymore. I was too embarrassed to be seen, even by the Mexican girls. I woke up one night with vice-like pains squeezing my sides. I felt like my belly was a cement mixer. Pain ran up and down my back. The sheets beneath me were soaking wet.
Mom, I called. Mom! Rachel came in. She was pale. She was already dressed.
Okay, Isabelle, she said. We’re going to get through this.
That's the first person. Or:
Isabelle slept in Rachel’s bed and Rachel took the couch. She didn’t going to school anymore. She was too embarrassed to be seen, even by the Mexican girls. She woke up one night with vice-like pains squeezing at her sides. Her belly was a cement mixer. Pain ran up and down her back. The sheets beneath her were soaking wet.
Mom, she called. Mom! Rachel came in. She was pale. She was already dressed.
We’re going to get through this, Rachel said.
Her is sleeping...
She is sleeping?
I am sleeping?
Story in memory?
Or memory in story?
Listening to her reminds me of my own struggles in novelistic storytelling. A novel offers endless choices in point of view and, along with tone, it’s one of the greatest challenges to try to find a point of view that fits with the story’s throughline and author’s intent. (Wow, sorry, that was a dry sentence!) Each offers its own take on the sense we try to make of our essentially random lives.
First person has the power of memory; third person the power of distance, of the space to act more visibly as storyteller. This morning, I am contemplating which one works better for a particular scene, and I’ve sketched out two options—one in first and one in third:
Rachel let me sleep in her bed. She took the couch. I wasn’t going to school anymore. I was too embarrassed to be seen, even by the Mexican girls. I woke up one night with vice-like pains squeezing my sides. I felt like my belly was a cement mixer. Pain ran up and down my back. The sheets beneath me were soaking wet.
Mom, I called. Mom! Rachel came in. She was pale. She was already dressed.
Okay, Isabelle, she said. We’re going to get through this.
That's the first person. Or:
Isabelle slept in Rachel’s bed and Rachel took the couch. She didn’t going to school anymore. She was too embarrassed to be seen, even by the Mexican girls. She woke up one night with vice-like pains squeezing at her sides. Her belly was a cement mixer. Pain ran up and down her back. The sheets beneath her were soaking wet.
Mom, she called. Mom! Rachel came in. She was pale. She was already dressed.
We’re going to get through this, Rachel said.
Her is sleeping...
She is sleeping?
I am sleeping?
Story in memory?
Or memory in story?
Comments
But maybe there's a comparison to be made to parenting and homesteading, which is what's seeming so hard to me these days. The difficulties and demands are easy to enumerate, but the awards outweigh them (right? right?) even if the rewards are harder to describe.