Discuss the narrative strategies used by Grace Paley in 'Conversation with my father' to represent the relationship between the narrator and his/her parent, and comment on their effectiveness.
Discuss the narrative strategies used by Grace Paley in 'Conversation with my father' to represent the relationship between the narrator and his/her parent, and comment on their effectiveness.
In a 'Conversation with my father' Paley vividly presents a tragic scene of a dying father engaging with his son or daughter at his bedside and his wish to be told a story "just once more". Paley makes great use of varying narrative strategies to develop the representation of the relationship of the father and child. Through scrupulous use of discourse, dialogue, setting and narrative style and structure I think she successfully portrays the intimate yet difficult relationship shown.
The first significant thing we notice is that Paley chooses to narrate her story in the genre of the short story. One of the main generic features of the genre is to juxtapose stories within a frame narrative. This is all too evident in 'Conversation with my father' where the narration of the relationships of two sets of parents and children using an embedded story is central to the text. The frame narrative is chronological and is intermitted with a second and third story. The irony in this story is that the embedded story is also a short story and this is used to great effect by paralleling both and using them to explore the similarities and differences of the two in stylistic and contextual terms. The ideas narration and story telling are central to the text. 'Conversation with my father' is based around story telling. The father is very interested in writing showing his knowledge of great Russian authors shown by phrases such as "Turgenev wouldn't do that. Chekov wouldn't do that" and daughter appears to be some sort of author. The idea of writing and narrative is subtley introduced in the discourse in the opening paragraph when the daughter explains "Despite my metaphors" when using the imagery of a "bloody motor" to describe his aged heart.
Paley uses the daughter of the invalid father, assuming the offspring is female, as her narrative agent. It is from this first person narrative with internal participation that the relationship with the father figure and the internal stories are depicted. The father is very ill suggested by his "last minute advice" but the daughter, although quite aware of his condition seems almost ambivalent to his dying request to "write a story just once more". The use of "just once more" emphasizes the fact that this telling of stories has happened for along time also the reference to the kind of stories "she used to write" and is one of many indications of the longevity, strength and intimacy of the relationship. But the daughter knows he's "eighty-six years old and in bed" and his "bloody" heart "will not do certain jobs anymore" yet she answers simply "Yes, why not, that's possible" and this is the first exposure to the daughters apparent ignorance of his condition, not because she isn't aware but because she herself can not accept this "tragedy" of her fathers imminent death. This brings us to question the reliability of the narrative agent, however the discourse involving the daughter is extremely dialogue heavy and dialogue is not open to interpretation or bias, it is simply reported. I think that the daughter deviates from the truth using not her own narration but explores this seemingly unmentionable theme of death and loss in her fictional characters and so I think the daughter is a reliable narrator especially when considering the context of the close father and daughter relationship portrayed.
The embedded narrative has many functions in the text allowing the reader to juxtapose the two emphasizing their similarities and differences in style, content and purpose. The frame and embedded stories differ very much as well as the two internal embedded stories although apparently conveying the same scene. The frames stories style of narrative uses the first person who is internally involved in the present tense with heavy speech represented by dialogue where the second story is retrospective and in the past tense shown by the clichéd opening, "Once, across the street". The mode of representation of speech also differs from the frame story using reported instead of dialogue: "He said to his old friends, from now on, I guess I'll keep my wits about me". The narrator is very interesting in the embedded story as it is not from a clearly defined perspective. In the initial stages of the narrative it seems we are being told from a plural first person narrator shown by "across the street form us" and "our neighbor" and this seems to represent the community as a whole as shown through "any of children who were at college or in hospital or drop outs at home". The narrative seems to change though in middle of the story to a kind of pseudo third person focalised through the mother as we find out thoughts and actions the community could not possibly know, for example "At home alone in the evening, weeping, the mother read and reread the seven issues of Oh! The golden horse! They seemed to her as truthful as ever." The effect of these differences is to make the frame story appear much more 'real' than the embedded 'fiction' and this makes the relationship much more believable. The father refers to this when he requests "recognizable people" and when daughter produces this female character the father immediately starts to devalue her and separate her from "real life". The two internal narratives are also very different in their discourse although basically similar in plot. The first embedded story is in one simple short paragraph conveying only the central ideas and bare facts in short sentences. Whereas the second embedded narrative is embellished with details in several paragraphs and intermitted with a stanza of poetry. The effect of this I think is to reinforce that this is in fact a story it is not real and can be redrafted and changed unlike these characters lives and relationships which are real and cannot, unfortunately for the daughter, be changed. I think this may be why they each find such consolation in stories and narratives. The two stories also allow the themes exposed in the first story to be developed or destroyed, for example the hopeful aspect of the first narrative reflecting the daughter is disbanded for a more pessimistic and realistic approach adopted by the father this is shown by lack of closure in the first story trying to prevent "The End" or the fathers death and the second having closure signifying the fathers death. I think the inclusion of the embedded stories is a very effective narrative strategy Paley employs considering the word 'death' is not used once.
In a 'Conversation with my father' Paley vividly presents a tragic scene of a dying father engaging with his son or daughter at his bedside and his wish to be told a story "just once more". Paley makes great use of varying narrative strategies to develop the representation of the relationship of the father and child. Through scrupulous use of discourse, dialogue, setting and narrative style and structure I think she successfully portrays the intimate yet difficult relationship shown.
The first significant thing we notice is that Paley chooses to narrate her story in the genre of the short story. One of the main generic features of the genre is to juxtapose stories within a frame narrative. This is all too evident in 'Conversation with my father' where the narration of the relationships of two sets of parents and children using an embedded story is central to the text. The frame narrative is chronological and is intermitted with a second and third story. The irony in this story is that the embedded story is also a short story and this is used to great effect by paralleling both and using them to explore the similarities and differences of the two in stylistic and contextual terms. The ideas narration and story telling are central to the text. 'Conversation with my father' is based around story telling. The father is very interested in writing showing his knowledge of great Russian authors shown by phrases such as "Turgenev wouldn't do that. Chekov wouldn't do that" and daughter appears to be some sort of author. The idea of writing and narrative is subtley introduced in the discourse in the opening paragraph when the daughter explains "Despite my metaphors" when using the imagery of a "bloody motor" to describe his aged heart.
Paley uses the daughter of the invalid father, assuming the offspring is female, as her narrative agent. It is from this first person narrative with internal participation that the relationship with the father figure and the internal stories are depicted. The father is very ill suggested by his "last minute advice" but the daughter, although quite aware of his condition seems almost ambivalent to his dying request to "write a story just once more". The use of "just once more" emphasizes the fact that this telling of stories has happened for along time also the reference to the kind of stories "she used to write" and is one of many indications of the longevity, strength and intimacy of the relationship. But the daughter knows he's "eighty-six years old and in bed" and his "bloody" heart "will not do certain jobs anymore" yet she answers simply "Yes, why not, that's possible" and this is the first exposure to the daughters apparent ignorance of his condition, not because she isn't aware but because she herself can not accept this "tragedy" of her fathers imminent death. This brings us to question the reliability of the narrative agent, however the discourse involving the daughter is extremely dialogue heavy and dialogue is not open to interpretation or bias, it is simply reported. I think that the daughter deviates from the truth using not her own narration but explores this seemingly unmentionable theme of death and loss in her fictional characters and so I think the daughter is a reliable narrator especially when considering the context of the close father and daughter relationship portrayed.
The embedded narrative has many functions in the text allowing the reader to juxtapose the two emphasizing their similarities and differences in style, content and purpose. The frame and embedded stories differ very much as well as the two internal embedded stories although apparently conveying the same scene. The frames stories style of narrative uses the first person who is internally involved in the present tense with heavy speech represented by dialogue where the second story is retrospective and in the past tense shown by the clichéd opening, "Once, across the street". The mode of representation of speech also differs from the frame story using reported instead of dialogue: "He said to his old friends, from now on, I guess I'll keep my wits about me". The narrator is very interesting in the embedded story as it is not from a clearly defined perspective. In the initial stages of the narrative it seems we are being told from a plural first person narrator shown by "across the street form us" and "our neighbor" and this seems to represent the community as a whole as shown through "any of children who were at college or in hospital or drop outs at home". The narrative seems to change though in middle of the story to a kind of pseudo third person focalised through the mother as we find out thoughts and actions the community could not possibly know, for example "At home alone in the evening, weeping, the mother read and reread the seven issues of Oh! The golden horse! They seemed to her as truthful as ever." The effect of these differences is to make the frame story appear much more 'real' than the embedded 'fiction' and this makes the relationship much more believable. The father refers to this when he requests "recognizable people" and when daughter produces this female character the father immediately starts to devalue her and separate her from "real life". The two internal narratives are also very different in their discourse although basically similar in plot. The first embedded story is in one simple short paragraph conveying only the central ideas and bare facts in short sentences. Whereas the second embedded narrative is embellished with details in several paragraphs and intermitted with a stanza of poetry. The effect of this I think is to reinforce that this is in fact a story it is not real and can be redrafted and changed unlike these characters lives and relationships which are real and cannot, unfortunately for the daughter, be changed. I think this may be why they each find such consolation in stories and narratives. The two stories also allow the themes exposed in the first story to be developed or destroyed, for example the hopeful aspect of the first narrative reflecting the daughter is disbanded for a more pessimistic and realistic approach adopted by the father this is shown by lack of closure in the first story trying to prevent "The End" or the fathers death and the second having closure signifying the fathers death. I think the inclusion of the embedded stories is a very effective narrative strategy Paley employs considering the word 'death' is not used once.
