Things Not Seen

           So the book I’m reading is called “Things Not Seen”. This book is about a boy that wakes up one day and doesn’t see himself in the mirror! This book’s perspective is first person which means  that the story is told from one of the character’s eyes using the words I, me, my, myself etc. In this book it happens to be the main character’s perspective. I know its first person because he uses those words throughout the story. A quote from the text that shows that could be “so I go back to the big mirror” and another example could be “and I can’t see myself”.

A quote that you directly see the perspective might be a quote that had I or myself right in it like “and now I have got their attention” and “so I’m thinking, Oh , great.” As you can they both are clearly directly reviled since they say I and I’m. It is pretty easy to know it’s first person when it’s right there!

You won’t be able to always see the perspective directly. An example of an indirectly revealed perspective is “Mom’s hand starts reaching” and “It’d dad again. He’s clearing his throat.” This is a bit more tricky because it doesn’t say me, myself, I etc. But it does say mom and dad. And usually when you call someone mom it means she is your mother and the same thing with dad. So you know it’s the boy that is telling the story. I agree it is harder than the direct but it makes sense.

One of the only ways you can learn about other characters in a book that is told from first perspective is by what the person that tells the story acts and says about them. For example in my book he says “Meet professor mom.” So what we learn about the mom from his perspective is that she knows everything!  Kind of like a metaphor! The reason why I don’t like this is that there when its what someone says what HE thinks about someone might not always be true! Because you might not like someone at all and you would tell everyone they were mean but really they could be really nice!