The analysis of the excerpt from the novel How to get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid shows that it follows a linear, chronological plot structure. The story describes the narrator’s first experience with a girl.
The characters of the story are the narrator and the pretty girl. They have a short but intense relationship which ends abruptly when the pretty girl runs away.
The setting is a town in Asia. There is a focus on the poor living conditions of the narrator and the pretty girl.
The story is told using a second-person narrator. For the main part of the story, we follow the narrator’s perspective, but at one point the perspective switches briefly to that of the pretty girl.
The language is conversational, often using common words and phrases. This contributes to the realistic feel of the story. Several metaphors and similes offer more insight into the minds of the two characters and the environment they live in.
You can read a more detailed analysis in the following pages.
Short story analysis
I denne vejledning får du Studienets hjælp til at analysere noveller (short stories) i engelsk.
Excerpt from the study guide:
Despite the use of second-person narrative, the perspective remains that of the teenage boy who works at the DVD store. This allows the reader access to his thoughts and feelings. For instance:
For the past several months, your one secret indulgence, which you are both deeply guilty about and fiercely committed to, has been the daily purchase of a quarter-liter packet of milk. This consumes ten percent of your salary, the precise amount of raise you neglected to inform your father you received. Per week, your milk habit is also roughly equivalent to the price your employer’s customers are willing to pay for the delivery of one pirated DVD, a fact that alternately angers you in its preposterousness and soothes you by putting your theft from your family into diminished perspective (p. 156, ll. 12-20).
We are given a clear insight into the narrator’s thought process and mixed feelings regarding his secret purchase of milk, how he justifies it to himself and how he judges its value.
There is also a section of the text that appears to be from the perspective of the pretty girl. However, the story does not switch to a different narrator. The narrative voice remains that of the second-person narrator. For instance:
What is clear to the pretty girl is that she must bridge a significant cultural and class divide to enter even the lower realm of the world of fashion. Hence her initial interest in movies, and in you. But she has discovered, beyond their educational value, that she actually enjoys films, and even more surprisingly, that she actually enjoys talking to you (p. 159, ll. 19-24).
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