1. In our class readings, verb tense definitely affected the stories for me. The verb tense of Good People, by David Foster Wallace, seems to change multiple times in the story. To me, a lot of this story felt as if it were told in present tense, but at times past tense was used when talking about events from the past, and there even seemed to be a bit of future tense mixed in.
“That she will carry this and have it; she has to. With her gaze clear and steady. That all night last night she prayed and searched inside herself and decided this is what love commands of her.”
The narrator first talks about what Sheri will do, then speaks about what she is doing now, and then finally brings up what she did last night. The changing verb tense here is very well done and creates and makes for an excellent read in my opinion. …show more content…
Although I enjoy many literary perspectives, I generally prefer reading a story from a third person perspective. In terms of the range of characters, I enjoy a story that changes perspectives from many characters. I find that the third person omniscient perspective offers the narrator more flexibility in how they can tell a story, and it further develops secondary characters by delving into their thoughts. While there is an enormous amount of great literature that uses this first person perspective, it can be limiting in that you only are told the story through the eyes of one person. For example, in The Cask Of Amontillado, by Edgar Allen Poe, we are only told the story from Montresor's perspective, and therefore only learn about others through him. We know that Montresor was pretending to be friendly towards Fortunato, and that somehow Fortunato insulted Montresor which lead to the evil murder plan. But how did Fortunato feel about Montresor? Like Monstesor did to him, Fortunato might have been giving Monstesor the Pan Am smile. This is left for interpretation, because we never explicitly explore the mind of
“That she will carry this and have it; she has to. With her gaze clear and steady. That all night last night she prayed and searched inside herself and decided this is what love commands of her.”
The narrator first talks about what Sheri will do, then speaks about what she is doing now, and then finally brings up what she did last night. The changing verb tense here is very well done and creates and makes for an excellent read in my opinion. …show more content…
Although I enjoy many literary perspectives, I generally prefer reading a story from a third person perspective. In terms of the range of characters, I enjoy a story that changes perspectives from many characters. I find that the third person omniscient perspective offers the narrator more flexibility in how they can tell a story, and it further develops secondary characters by delving into their thoughts. While there is an enormous amount of great literature that uses this first person perspective, it can be limiting in that you only are told the story through the eyes of one person. For example, in The Cask Of Amontillado, by Edgar Allen Poe, we are only told the story from Montresor's perspective, and therefore only learn about others through him. We know that Montresor was pretending to be friendly towards Fortunato, and that somehow Fortunato insulted Montresor which lead to the evil murder plan. But how did Fortunato feel about Montresor? Like Monstesor did to him, Fortunato might have been giving Monstesor the Pan Am smile. This is left for interpretation, because we never explicitly explore the mind of