The second person

Having finished both Lorrie Moore’s Self-Helf as well as Junot Diaz’s Drown, I have now been exposed to a number of second person stories. To talk, in detail, about the second person writing in each of these stories would be too much for any blog post, and thus instead this blog post will talk about the general aspects of what I have seen, and I would love to hear your thoughts.

I am going to start the discussion about the second person writing by giving my thoughts on how this style effected each of the stories we saw this in. The first story was titled “How to be an other woman.” In this short story which was part of the Lorrie Moore collection, I was exposed to how the use of this second person can have an effect on the story.

Looking back on the class discussion as well as my thoughts on the story, I believe that How to be an Other Woman is a great story to serve as an introduction to the second person narrative. There is one main reason for this, being that it followed a very straightforward plot. In the story, the timeline was linear, without many flashbacks, and this helps us to focus on the narrator's actions in the story. The focus on the actions is especially important, because it is a “How To” meaning that, in theory, the reader should be paying close attention to those directions on what to do. This first story, because of its plot was a great introduction to the second person.

Now for how the second person changed this first short story. In “How to be an Other Woman,” the opening scene tells us, in classic Lorrie Moore fashion, to meet a man in a certain place under certain conditions. This specificity as well as many other parts of the story let us, the reader, know that this is not a true “how to” guide that you can simply follow, but rather the second person is just a different way to tell the story. Since we are alerted to the fact that this is not truly a guide on how to be an other woman, we wonder why it is in the second person. I believe that one major possibility, is that the second person is a way to make the story more personal. In class, we discussed how the word “You” helps the reader to imagine themselves in the situation. In this first story, I was introduced to the second person in an easily understandable way, due to the simple nature of the plot. Also, the second person allowed me to better connect with the narrator, because it forced me to put myself in her shoes, which really made the story more powerful.

The second story to use this narrative style was in the same collection, but his time creatively named “How.” I found this story to be very similar to “How to be an Other Woman” in more ways than just the name. The reasons for the second person were still there, but I found one major difference, which was the use of different choices. This aspect was much more prominent in “How” and is seen throughout the story. This addition to the short story makes the plot slightly more complex, as it gives the reader a couple of options, but it also makes the narrative more general. Because the narrator gives two or even three different options for a couple of different scenarios, the story seems to apply to more people’s situations which makes it much for of a “How To” guide.

The final story that featured the second person was “How to Date a Browngirl” which was written by Junot Diaz. The second person in this story had a very different purpose when compared to the previous two stories. The first thing I noticed was how little Diaz used the word “you.” Before, we had talked about how this word made the story more personal, and thus without “you” I felt much less of a personal connection to Yunior (the narrator). This in essence made the story even more resemblant of a true how to guide, because it does not aim to help you connect to the narrator, but rather just inform you of what is happening.

As we saw in “How,” the use of “or” and different paths in the story can be an important part of a second person narrative, and this story is no different. Again, I saw the plot branch off into a couple of different possible scenarios, but this time the narrator went much more in depth into each possibility. I felt that in “How,” the “or” was mainly for variety, but in “How to Date a Browngirl” the narrator truly gives us four different scenarios depending on who you are on a date with. I found this to be extremely complex, especially since there were parts of the story in which Diaz did not clearly tell us which scenario the narrator was depicting. Thankfully, I had already been exposed to the second person narrative part, because of the previous two short stories.

Overall, I think that these three stories really helped to show me what a second person narrative is like, as well as what some advantages to it are. In the three stories, I believe that I saw an escalation in complexity, but also a variety in the reasoning for the second person. I found that these three stories were enlightening, and I really enjoyed reading the second person stories.