First-Person Fiction

The story was about a little girl, I believe, who thought that there is some place not on Earth and far from it that she was once on and wished to return to it. I believe the narrator was thinking throughout the story as opposed to writing or speaking it due to all the immediate thoughts and commentary for every event in the piece. I do not believe there is an audience the narrator imagined as much as she was relaying her actions, thoughts, and perceptions of others. Since the story was told in present tense, all that happened, happened as she said they do. I feel that the narrator knew this story was about her and her actions and beliefs of the other world she wished to return to. While it seemed to be a straightforward story, the narrator didn’t truly understand anything. She didn’t understand her mother who didn’t like her (but that may be reasonable especially since the child she had didn’t even call her mother), she thought she knew her brother well but she didn’t care how she affected him, and finally, my biggest point, she didn’t even know about the other place — how to describe it or how to get there — and her brother did. She also didn’t understand what Jarek had done to her mother either. The narrator presented the story almost as an explanation of how and why she was trying to get to this other place, but there isn’t enough information to make us think she wasn’t delusional. She only became more egocentric throughout the story and looked down on more and more people as though she was better, and this can be seen through her presentation of the story, tone, and the slight change in confidence she had on page 274 where she instantly “knows” that the name she came up with out of thin air was the name of the man she had to kill, “And then, suddenly, I am sure,” and that surge in confidence fueled the rest of the story.