A story has to be told by somebody. Explore in detail your impressions of the “story-teller” in Mountains Beyond Mountains. Was the “story-teller” the same as the writer (implicitly or explicitly) or not? How does this question influence your reading? As both the author and story-teller, Tracy Kidder creates credibility about the story of Paul Farmer. Tracy Kidder is also one of the important characters in the Mountains Beyond Mountains. Throughout the book, Kidder writes Farmer's humanitarian work and his personality. Tracy Kidder spent time studying Farmer and observing the way he practices his knowledge in Haiti. He's trying to understand how someone like Paul Farmer can dedicate half his life away from his family while helping people …show more content…
The writer being the narrator of a book is more convenient for the reader to understand the story as a whole. However, Kidder uses the first person but also when describing a scene he uses the character's name with little presence of the third person unless he's referring to them instead of consistently using their names. "Ophelia thought that Paul had a fairly complex personality, built of opposition.." From this Tracy Kidder uses Ophelia's referring to her by her name but not as the third person. One way we can see that Tracy Kidder being the storyteller is his present as an eyewitness of Farmer's life it allows the reader to see how the writer is giving his point of view and it can also be seen as Tracy Kidder being the witness of Farmer's journey. Let's take a look at this example in Mountains Beyond Mountains. "I remarked on his sleepless nights, his hundreds-hour weeks, his incessant travel, as he hobbled along." We can understand what the writer is trying to say because the usage of "I" emphasizes on Kidder being present in Farmer's life to the point where he can comment on how he sees Paul