Analytical Essay om "Mount Pleasant"

Uddrag

The child's imagination can turn the world into a playground filled with ghost, goblins and other supernatural beings. No boundaries exist – a world where sheets become ghosts and old pictures come to life. Children incorporate their vivid imagination in their games thereby making the world a more interesting, fun and even terrifying place to be. Getting a glimpse into the imagination of a creative child is exactly what Mary-Louise Buxton gives us in the short story Mount Pleasant from 2005.

The short story is told in the explicit first person; in other words, the narrator Elizabeth tells us the story directly and our knowledge is limited by her view of the world. We, as readers, know nothing she does not know. Buxton employs several literary techniques in her short piece. By setting the story in the point of view of a young child, she immediately establishes the narrator as unreliable. Young children see “boogiemen” all the time, and, generally speaking, adults do not take these claims seriously. If a little girl around Elizabeth's age (six or seven) told you that she thought that her house was being haunted by a photograph, would you believe her?

That we are dealing with an unreliable narrator is reinforced by how Buxton tells the story through Elizabeth. Though Buxton never directly tells us that Elizabeth has a short attention span, we know that she does because the narration jumps around. For example, on page 3, starting on line 85, Elizabeth switches from telling us about the picture to reminiscing about the town and charging up a bill on her mother's tab buying candy. All throughout page 3, especially between lines 100 and 110, there are abrupt changes between the past and present. These are time shifts, which are often employed when using the technique or style called stream of consciousness. By using this technique, Buxton reminds the reader that Elizabeth is young and perhaps her perceptions are not to be trusted. Since we only see what Elizabeth sees, we don't necessarily see the objective truth. Lena, Mammy, and Daddy might all have very different versions of the same events.

Elizabeth's childish language also subtly suggests the idea of the unreliable narrator. For example, she says “babby” instead of baby in line 28, uses the phrase “eenie meenie miny mo” (p.3, l. 35), and invents her own proper names for objects and concepts, such as “the Look” (p.3, l. 46) and “Granny ‘Omi's Duckering Ball” (p.3, l. 49). The inventive language also suggests a girl with a vivid imagination, who forms and plays with the world around her... Køb adgang for at læse mere Allerede medlem? Log ind