Point Of View In Saving Sourdi By May-Lee Chai

Colloff’s use of point of view in her first paragraph is vital to the reader in order to connect with her entire essay. Not only does it draw the reader in through Michael’s point of view but also most importantly is effective in eliciting strong emotions while using primarily third person objective point of view with commentary first person view, which creates an understanding of the suffering and fear felt by

In the short stories, “Saving Sourdi,” by May-Lee Chai and “The Moths,” by Helena Maria Viramontes, the main character of each short story goes through their own coming of age experience where they are forced to mature in order to overcome an obstacle. Chai explains her main character, Nea’s, struggle as she is forced to mature and overcome the departure of her older sister, Sourdi, from her life after she gets married and moves away. Viramontes, on the other hand, depicts her narrator’s struggle as she is forced to mature and overcome the death of her Abuelita on her own. Despite their very different approaches, both Chai and Viramontes successfully convey their main character 's struggles in their journey from youth to adulthood.

Point of view is important in any novel. It allows readers to see and understand the events and characters in a novel. Depending on who is speaking, point of view can drive the plot and convey the thoughts of the characters in a story. In the novel, The Brief Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, point of view plays a crucial role in narrating the life of the lonesome outsider, Oscar. The novel is narrated in first person, but Diaz chooses to disclose who the speaker is until later in the book. As the story progresses, there are clues that hint to the reader who the outside source narrating Oscars life is. Diaz uses Yunior to narrate a majority of the novel. This point of view lets the readers understand the Dominican culture through Yunior’s commentary and perspective. It also gives an outside perspective on Oscar which helps build Oscar as a character. Instead of using an omniscient third person or generic first person point of view, Diaz uses multiple characters to narrate the story. This ingenious idea gave the story a more personal and up close look at not only the life of Oscar, but also the lives of his sister, Lola, and his mother, Beli.

In July 2009, at a TED conference, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian author, gave a stunning speech about “the Danger of a Single Story”. In her speech, she mentioned about negative consequences happening when people tend to form stereotypes based on a single story, the one-sided argument. The single story blindfolds our eyes and prevents us from seeing the complexity, diversity, and similarities that construct our world, just as Adichie says “these negative stories is to flatten my experience and overlook the many other stories that formed me” (12:56). Listening to all her own personal experience and argument, I have become fully convinced and also see myself reflected in her stories. The single story can cause underlying and harmful impacts not only on personal issues but also on the global scale.

The world is a massive place full of endless literature, beginning from ancient scrolls to daily news articles, filled with many secrets, perspectives and surroundings that help connect literature to an individual’s daily life. Some writers use the skills of literary elements to express and discuss an event that has happened to them or what has happened to others. This helps others to comprehend the perspectives of the author’s understanding toward an incident that one might experience. For instance in Flannery O’Connor’s short story, she uses many literary elements to express her views over most of her stories. O’Connor expresses her views in her short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by using the literary elements of point of view, irony, and setting.

In the short story “Saving Sourdi” by May-Lee Chai Mr. Chhay symbolizes the change into adulthood and coming of age. Throughout the story Nea is protective of her older sister Sourdi, even after she is married to Mr. Chhay. However, Nea realizes that Sourdi has grown up since she met Mr. Chhay and is no longer need her protection because she is an adult. This causes Nea to mature and finally snap back into reality. Also, Sourdi matures into an adult when she marries Mr. Chhay and has a kids.

“The world changes when we change our perspective.” If two people watch the same event,they may have two different versions of what happened. A person’s point of view or perspective is influenced by many different factors and can help shape a story. In the stories Canyons by Gary Paulsen and “Stop the Sun” by Gary Paulsen the authors use dialogue to develop the characters perspective.

The plot in the short story “Hindus” demonstrates how a certain sequence of events can help people better understand themselves. Leela meets many different and unique people on her journey throughout

In class we have been discussing the analogy of perspectives. A perspective is a way of seeing, also thought of as a ‘point of view’. This mental view or outlook can both enhance and constrain how we view the world in our own eyes. In the field of psychology and sociology there are many ways to perceive our world in which we live. No one perspective alone can define the world. Each perspective has its own distinctive strengths and blind spots. In class we have discussed different theories and analogies to better understand the complexity of perspectives.

The point of view of the story is very important, as it could reveal thoughts and actions that other characters and their points of view would not reveal. This story is told from Sarah’s, aka Neddy’s point of view, but is still in third-person. “Sarah’s face was now green and purple on the left side, with several scratch marks that were puffy and red.” (Rinaldi 97) It follows everything that Sarah does, but still does not use the word “I,” unless someone is speaking about themselves.

Proceeding this research with a thorough analysis behind the story that was chosen to write this paper. It would be taken more in depth behind the story of the meaning why it was written and what historical event were currently happening to inspire the time it was written. There are many aspects to what a story is about based on the elements that is used to create the story. To be able to develop a story, a story must consider the plot, setting, time, the characters, point of view, style/tone, theme, and symbolism. Other inspirations such a environ, culture, and even psychological view, are some of the other reason to comprehend the story as its being told.

Dr. Phillip C. McGraw once wrote, “No matter how flat you make a pancake, it’s still got two sides”. Humans have overcome many obstacles throughout our existence, but one of the biggest obstacles that we still face today is only looking at the world through our perspective. When you only look from your own perspective you miss a whole sea of different views. Whether people will admit it or not, being able to look at someone else’s point of view will bring us farther than only focusing on our own. Dr. Phillip also wrote, “It’s a skill you can cultivate, just like flipping a pancake”.

The differences between first and third person perspectives are detrimental when making the decision on which to use when writing. They are almost exactly polar opposites of each other, ones advantage being the others disadvantage and vice versa. In the aspect of the

Everyone often has different perceptions of the world that significantly vary from others. As a result, our own perceptions are often internally and externally in severe conflict with ourselves or others. Eventually, an individual is often forced to reconcile their internal conflicting perceptions and required to embrace the ideologies of others. In the short story “The Blue Bouquet”, Octavio Paz suggests that when individuals have varying perceptions of the world, they are often unable to understand or embrace these different ideologies; as a result, conflicts internally and externally will naturally arise unconsciously. Individuals are often experiencing internal conflicts with themselves when their ideal perception of the world is different

The entire point of view is first person. Susie relates everything that happens to every character, including their thoughts and even their deeds. She is a godlike character in that she can see and know everything about those who love her, even their past. It’s only when she chooses not to know that her godlikeness disappears. Since everything is filtered through Susie, it might seem as if the reader is denied access to the reality each character might present if they could speak for themselves. However, this point of view still allows us to know what the characters are thinking and feeling and we get a wonderful sketch of each one. This may be due to the fact that Susie loves them all or is bound to them all in some enduring way.