English 300OL – Contemporary Literature

Narration & Point of View – Whole-Class Discussion Forum

“Who’s Irish ” by Gish Jen

This forum will focus on narration and point of view!  For your initial post, please consider how these literary terms are defined on our Elements of Fiction handout:

Stories are told from the point of view of a narrator (POV). When the narrator is a character it is referred to as first-person narration. If we have reason to doubt the information we are getting, we call the narrator unreliable. In third person narration, the narrator can have omniscience (all-knowing) or limited omniscience (narrator tells us the feelings/thoughts of only one character). Stream of consciousness narration shows us the continuous stream of inner feelings and thoughts of one character.

In light of contemporary issues and writing style, analyze the impact of narration/voice on each story’s tone and meaning.  How does the narrative style help to define the characters? How does it help to convey meaning?  In your post, make specific references to the story’s characters and scenes.

Please post an initial 500 word response.  Kindly post a 3-4 sentence response to five (5) of your classmates.