Crossing to Safety and The Sweet Hereafter

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Crossing to Safety and The Sweet Hereafter

The long summer has led me to produce a few thoughts on the assigned summer reading.  While reading the books The Sweet Hereafter and Crossing to Safety I have discovered the importance of first person.  By comparing the books I have found how the first person viewpoint relates to the characters, the action, and how the novels differ by author in their style of writing.  

The Sweet Hereafter has an interesting approach to sending us on a journey through the story.  By having four narrators we get to see all the angles around the main event.  One narration in particular, Billy Ansel, gives us an eye witness account of the featured action in the novel.  “The swerve off the road to the right, the skid, the smashing of the guard rail and the snow bank; and then the tilted angled plummet down the embankment to the sand pit, where, moving fast and somehow still upright, the bus slid across the ice to the far side; and then the ice letting go and the rear half of the yellow bus being swallowed at once by the freezing blue green water.” Here we see how the first person can be used for action sequences.  Because Billy Ansel was the only eyewitness, it is imperative that Russell Banks puts in his account in his own words, thoughts and feelings.  Using the first person is one way to depict action, but it is also an efficient way to describe characters.  

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Wallace Stegner takes a drastically different approach to his novel Crossing to Safety.  The book is primarily told through the eyes of Larry Morgan.  Throughout the book we get Larry’s thoughts and feelings on events and happenings from beginning to end.  Wallace Stegner uses Larry’s character to describe the other characters and issues.  “Charity I was prepared for more or less-the fine narrow head, the drawn back hair, the vivid face, the greetings that managed to be excitedly personal even while she was dividing them among eight of us.” “but right then, in her doorway, crying greeting, she looked simply ...

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