Sunday, August 8, 2010

Point of View

The first thing I noticed about this chapter was that it completely switched point of views from omniscient to first person. It became apparent in the opening sentences as the narrator discussed a personal story between himself and another character the audience has already been introduced to. Consequently, this brought many questions to my mind. Who is the speaker? Have we, the audience, already met him? Why is the author flash-forwarding all the way after the war when so far there has only been one chapter?
Perhaps the narrator is the author himself, Tim O'Brien. After all, he did say that he wished to write a story about their experiences.

"At the end, though, as we were walking out to his car, I told him that I'd like to write a story about some of this. Jimmy thought it over and gave me a small smile. 'Why not?' he said." (page 28)

I mean, isn't that what this book essentially is? As of right now, I suspect the novel might be a recollection of Tim's own personal war experiences as a soldier.

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