Bastard out of Carolina

You have made some interesting comments about the narrator of this novel. I am wondering what you think of the author’s reasoning for choosing to create the narrator in this way. The narrator’s feelings are obviously signficant – the challenge of feeling like a tom boy while knowing that she will ultimately grow up to be what the men are making fun of – strengthens the message being delivered to readers. Why did Allison create such a narrator? How can readers connect to the narrator at this stage in her life?

Stories move forward by conflict. In this story, much of the conflict is between the narrator and herself. This type of conflict is subtler and harder to portray through a story as opposed to other types of conflict, such as a fast paced action story.

With this narrator, Allison wished to portray the conflicts of growing up. Bone is a perceptive child and understands much more of the world than she lets on. Allison is not just telling the story of Bone’s family, but how Bone interacts and learns from that family situation.

Bone works as a narrator because she is torn between thinking like a child and thinking like an adult. With her mother working all the time, Bone was forced to grow up faster on her own. However, she still retains some childlike qualities which make her view of the world seem at times to be both naive and insightful. When Daddy Glen begins to treat her in a way that makes her uncomfortable, she understands the situation, but at the same time denies that it anything like ’sex’ as she has learned from her aunts and uncles.

The readers can connect to the conflicts of growing up, because everyone experiences it at some point. Although the circumstances may be different for Bone, the process of growing up is still very similar.