ENG110Y5 Lecture 3: Red Plaid Shirt
Document Summary
This is the author"s best-known work; its use of second person narrative is in itself a rare occurrence and an unusual one: It"s odd hearing someone tell you your own story. Embodies power dynamics, where the author is telling us our own story and we have to make sense of it. They have power over us and we"re confined to it; this is why second person makes for uncomfortable reading. Narrator and protagonist probably aren"t the same person. This implies that the narrator has power over the protagonist can see right through the protagonist, explaining what he/she does and what it means. Or the narrator could be the voice of the author, contemplating the power she has over the protagonist. Maybe it"s a self-alienated protagonist reflecting on him/herself. How this you" works in the narrative reflects this complication. We have to decide what to make of the narrative.
