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It Would Be Different If By Michael Summary

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Journal Essay "It Would be Different if" Author Maggie Mitchel presents the point of view of only one character's consciousness in the short story "It Would Be Different if". In only presenting the first-person point of view, Mitchel limits readers analysis by only using the first-person narrators knowledge, experiences and perceptions. One interesting aspect of the story is how, the reader nor the characters have access to the inner lives of any other character in the story. As a result, this point of view places a heavy premium on dialogue, actions, and details to reveal character and form an analysis. Readers are provided with virtually no insight on previous events or even the narrator themselves. For example, the story starts off with the lines "She is there, which surprises me because the Shipyard is the kind of place where people crack beer bottles over each other's heads, and I wouldn't have thought it was her scene (Mitchel 209) ." Readers make a million different assumptions as to who the mentioned "she" is to try and piece together who this story is targeted to or what the purpose of the story is. …show more content…

The narrator places a lot of blame on an assumed to be ex-lover who's now moved on despite leaving the narrator scorned. The narrator also holds a lot of jealousy and resentment to the ex-lover's new partner. This is made evident in various parts of the story, most especially in the line "You're everywhere. I think you have ruined my life" (Mitchell 209). The narrator is evidently still scarred by this individuals absence and feels that they have ruined her

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