Blog Entry #5: Point of View
Part I
Jason (POV)
A) This shouldn't be happening, I thought as I made my way to the bedroom door. I glimpsed at my wife, Kathy, still fast asleep. She had no idea the predicament I was in, and what I was planning to do about it. I called Todd shortly after I woke up around 5. Everything me, him and the others were getting ready to do would take some time. It probably wouldn't be until the afternoon when most of this came to fruition. This was all we could do, we had to get rid of that damn jewel. It's psychedelic trance held more power over us than we could imagine. The way it affected us clearly had the intentions of destroying our minds. I soon went down the stairs and out the front door.
B) I chose third person point of view for a good amount of reasons. I prefer writing about my characters than being them, especially when I have a decent number of characters in one scene. I'm used to writing this way and it just feels more natural as well. In regards to writing that first person view up above, I didn't care for it. Especially spur of the moment. It's hard for me to be Jason, even though I can tell you anything you want to know about him. It takes practice for me to really be my characters, so I just go with third person so they can go about as they please.
Part II
This time around I read Dorothy Allison's "Dumpling Child," a short piece that differs from most of the other writing's I've read from her so far. This piece seems to be about a little child who eats dumplings, biscuits, okra and gravy. But that's not really the case. One of the things I like about the piece is the complete 180 it does when you believe you know the meaning just by reading the first section, but the second section completely knocks you for a loop. See, the piece is actually on lesbian sex, with some interesting words choices to try and make it subtle (kind of). With lines like "and ride my lover high up on the butterfat shine of her thighs" and "like slow like mama's favorite dumpling child," Allison is using food as euphemisms for this type of sex (similar to the song "Cake" by the B-52's). Due to the fact it's not a long piece, my general impression is that, considering I've grown to understand Allison's work at this point, this piece was not surprising even with its context. One of the subjects Allison's writes about is lesbianism and it couldn't be more clearly put than with this piece.
The other piece I read, "Not Speaking/Screaming," is interesting because, once again, upon reading the first section you don't really know what's going on. The way Allison uses her sentence structures in order to create word flows is really striking because she says so much in abstract ways. This piece, as the second section elaborates on, is about the narrator trying to strike up a conversation with a prostitute. The speaker has seen prostitutes in this city "settled in [beds] of trash," looking "camped, some mottled grey face[s]." It's heavy in a way. That's my impression of it, as there could always be another meaning. Especially when the narrator says "thinking still of that tall woman who walks Broadway with such long steps. And screams, and screams." My impression is that the narrator is the murderer, as he struck up conversation with another prostitute, probably trying to lead her to the same fate.
Allison's writing process, so far, seems to follow this general format. She writes the first section in an abstract manner, making the reader have to take a guess as to what she might be referring to. In my case, the initial idea I had in mind never turned out to be what I ended up finding out. It is in the second section where she throws more at you, elaborates only slightly on what the piece might mean, as she still manages to keep it bottled up.
The only true difference between me and Allison is that her pieces are description heavy, while mine tend to focus on the dialogue side of things. Regarding the purpose and function, we do seem to agree that hitting them out of the blue with something unexpected is actually a nice, fun scenario to come up with every now and then. We also like to be abstract with certain meanings so it seems. I'm not sure why Allison tends to be abstract honestly, but I'm sure our reasoning's for it differ quite a bit.
Jason (POV)
A) This shouldn't be happening, I thought as I made my way to the bedroom door. I glimpsed at my wife, Kathy, still fast asleep. She had no idea the predicament I was in, and what I was planning to do about it. I called Todd shortly after I woke up around 5. Everything me, him and the others were getting ready to do would take some time. It probably wouldn't be until the afternoon when most of this came to fruition. This was all we could do, we had to get rid of that damn jewel. It's psychedelic trance held more power over us than we could imagine. The way it affected us clearly had the intentions of destroying our minds. I soon went down the stairs and out the front door.
B) I chose third person point of view for a good amount of reasons. I prefer writing about my characters than being them, especially when I have a decent number of characters in one scene. I'm used to writing this way and it just feels more natural as well. In regards to writing that first person view up above, I didn't care for it. Especially spur of the moment. It's hard for me to be Jason, even though I can tell you anything you want to know about him. It takes practice for me to really be my characters, so I just go with third person so they can go about as they please.
Part II
This time around I read Dorothy Allison's "Dumpling Child," a short piece that differs from most of the other writing's I've read from her so far. This piece seems to be about a little child who eats dumplings, biscuits, okra and gravy. But that's not really the case. One of the things I like about the piece is the complete 180 it does when you believe you know the meaning just by reading the first section, but the second section completely knocks you for a loop. See, the piece is actually on lesbian sex, with some interesting words choices to try and make it subtle (kind of). With lines like "and ride my lover high up on the butterfat shine of her thighs" and "like slow like mama's favorite dumpling child," Allison is using food as euphemisms for this type of sex (similar to the song "Cake" by the B-52's). Due to the fact it's not a long piece, my general impression is that, considering I've grown to understand Allison's work at this point, this piece was not surprising even with its context. One of the subjects Allison's writes about is lesbianism and it couldn't be more clearly put than with this piece.
The other piece I read, "Not Speaking/Screaming," is interesting because, once again, upon reading the first section you don't really know what's going on. The way Allison uses her sentence structures in order to create word flows is really striking because she says so much in abstract ways. This piece, as the second section elaborates on, is about the narrator trying to strike up a conversation with a prostitute. The speaker has seen prostitutes in this city "settled in [beds] of trash," looking "camped, some mottled grey face[s]." It's heavy in a way. That's my impression of it, as there could always be another meaning. Especially when the narrator says "thinking still of that tall woman who walks Broadway with such long steps. And screams, and screams." My impression is that the narrator is the murderer, as he struck up conversation with another prostitute, probably trying to lead her to the same fate.
Allison's writing process, so far, seems to follow this general format. She writes the first section in an abstract manner, making the reader have to take a guess as to what she might be referring to. In my case, the initial idea I had in mind never turned out to be what I ended up finding out. It is in the second section where she throws more at you, elaborates only slightly on what the piece might mean, as she still manages to keep it bottled up.
The only true difference between me and Allison is that her pieces are description heavy, while mine tend to focus on the dialogue side of things. Regarding the purpose and function, we do seem to agree that hitting them out of the blue with something unexpected is actually a nice, fun scenario to come up with every now and then. We also like to be abstract with certain meanings so it seems. I'm not sure why Allison tends to be abstract honestly, but I'm sure our reasoning's for it differ quite a bit.
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