Short Story Techniques Essay
...nd Dellis has had a life without a lot of responsibility and guidance. She lost her innocence “He was the only one I loved. The only one I wouldn’t take money from.” The narrative voice enables Turner Hospital to describe how a character can grow through their relationships and shows how two very different learn from each other. Garner uses a first person narrative voice in “Postcards from Surfers” to portray the main characters experiences through her life that have led her to the point she is at today. Through the use of the postcards she explains to a person in her past the relationship between herself and her father. Garner writes how the character reacts to people and her surroundings. The perspective is limited to the persona as a means of portraying how they are learning about the people they are closest too. The main character has a particularly difficult relationship with her father and finds it difficult to understand where he is coming from. As well as seeing their differences the character starts to see their similarities and realises that her father is right “the reason we don’t get along anymore is because we’re so much alike” “You gave Me Hyacinths” is set in the late 60’s, early 70’s time period. This is made evident through the use of language and promiscuity as well as the description of Cairns “Twenty Thousand people… the local idea of the big city” whereas Cairns nowadays is more of a metropolis. This explains the differences between Dellis and the persona as Dellis has “Been to Cairns once” and the persona is from a big city. Turner Hospital uses the time period to portray the differences in the lifestyles of the two characters and how they bond in a time when city life and country life wasn’t usually linked together. The story is set in a sugar cane town “less than a hundred miles” from Cairns where the population’s livelihood relies on the sugar cane mill. Education isn’t seen as very important and the youth are destined to work on the land. The description of the land is like a metaphor for the characters of the town “silky plumes that burst up into harvest time” Garner describes how out of place and different the main character, a new teacher, feels in this environment and how she reacts to the people in it. She forms a bond with Dellis because she feels she is smart enough to do anything however she doesn’t try because she doesn’t see any point. The characters learn from each other in this environment. “Postcards from Surfers” is a contemporary setting. Evidence of this is the reference to Pacific Fair, the shopping mall in Surfers Paradise. However the setting changes as the persona relives her past relationships in different settings like her childhood. This is used to describe how the character and her relationships have changed and evolved over time. Each time the character describes an occasion in her past she describes the time period and the geographical setting. The present setting of the story is Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast, where her parents have retired to. As she remembers her past the setting changes, for example when she was in France and in Geelong where she grew up. She has arrived in Surfers to resolve her relationships with her family and while she is at it she also resolves her relationships with people she met over her lifetime. The relaxed lifestyle enables the persona to let down her guard and start seeing things from other people’s perspectives. Garner uses the setting to explain how the persona’s relationships have changed and evolved and are resolved in Surfers. Turner Hospital starts “…Hyacinths” by introducing the main character and the setting in detail. She describes the heat of the summer in the town and the characters journey to work each day. She then describes the minor characters in the class: Dellis and Gian and goes on to describe the day the character has with Dellis and what she learns. The climax of the story comes with the thunderstorm and the realisation the main character has of how Dellis’s life has and what happened between Gian and Dellis. The thunderstorm is like a metaphor for the feelings Dellis has. She is angry at the persona because Gian likes her and Dellis is in love with Gian. The feelings are resolved when Dellis ...