The Sand Child

Throughout The Sand Child by Tahar Ben Jelloun, there are several voices within the book whom tell the story of Ahmed. Ben Jelloun loved the idea of stories being passed down orally, and thus the book is based around that ideal. The first chapter of the book is to introduce this concept to the reader. When the storyteller finishes his introduction he states, “We had better go before the sky bursts into flame. Come back tomorrow, unless the secret book abandons you.” (Ben Jelloun. Page 6) This creates a sense of other people reading the book at the same time or listening as well, due to the fact he does not direct the sentence at a single person, but a group of people. It truly creates a sense of multiple people listening or that there are more characters we are never introduced to because they are like the …show more content…
Page 104) This causes problems as we have had several storytellers before this, and it never stated which one had died. The metaphor also creates confusion, as people cannot truly die of a broken heart. The storyteller dies however Ahmed’s story never finished, which is where three more storytellers come in, Salem, Amar, and Fatuma. Each of which have various ways of ending the story. This is the first time we are able to compare the ideas of different characters in how they see the story. With every other storyteller, they completely took over the telling of the story and told their version however with these three they never try to interrupt one another. There is still a problem, however, as when Amar finishes his version of the story, “...Salem, embarrassed, tried to justify his own version of the story:...” (Ben Jelloun. Page 124) This causes a problem where the narrator's influence one another, and we may not get what they truly feel and because of this there may be more similarities between the