"Incarnations of Burned Children," by David Foster Wallace, is moving in a way that makes the reader's stomach clench and roll. The subject matter itself is mentally interesting and unique -- there are not many stories that one would read on a regular basis where the biggest, most obvious conflict is the physical pain of a child. At the same time, the story is about states of being and change; the Daddy changes from relaxed to panicked control, the mother from hysterics to helpful urgency. Most of all, there is a change in the state of the child from trusting and hopeful to disenchanted with life, even as early as toddler-hood.
The concrete imagery and syntax was very interesting to read in this piece. The simple diction and run on sentence structure pulls the reader along, creating a sense of urgency that the reader cannot pull out of and then come back to with ease. The story is written in such a way that it must be followed from beginning to end to be understood properly and to catch all details (this style also lends itself to the brevity of the piece). The persistent image of the door of the tenant and the bird on the tree outside also helped to foster a sense of panic within the story -- the human mind, like the eye, rarely ever rests on one thing for an extended period of time; there is a constant shifting and taking in of (seemingly irrelevant) information about what is going on around us, even in a state of emotional upheaval.
I would like to emulate this method of conveying emotion. There is very little "telling" in this piece about the emotional states of the characters, and a lot of "showing" through setting, background and flashback, as well as the actions of the characters.
No comments:
Post a Comment