'Pages from Cold Point' and 'You Are Not I'

Narration is an obviously important aspect to any piece of literature. Personally, I do not have any preference as to which point of view a story is being written in, however, the point of view and/or narration does influence my reading of the text.

Third person texts allow me to detach stereotypes, feelings, and personal situations from characters. Third person narration is a more general narration and personally, this helps me to see a bigger point more clearly. First person point of view, for me, is like a telescope into one mind. This is great to express inner monologue and thoughts, however, I personally can not 'trust' philosophical view points and/or statements about society from one person, as that is their own opinion.

I believe this is the reason I read 'You Are Not I' as one person. For me, first person point of view is misleading. It is one sided. In this story in particular our main character(s) is/are implied to have a mental illness. Often times a person with multiple personality disorders will create a person close to them and a person against them. I can see the sister as the person which was created by herself to take the brunt of the negativity she faces in life. As we said earlier, those with mental illness are not completely detached from reality. This is true, however, there is also a detachment from reality. In 'You Are Not I' I saw it as the main character was aware of her mental illness and created her (possibly twin) sister to help her feel less isolated and more normal, as well as being the one to take responsibility away from her (as we saw in the ending, her sister was taken away, not her.). The first person narration was the hand that lead me towards this theory. Had this story been written in third person, we would have seen the characters through a neutral source. This could have defined how many bodies were present during the conversations  and actions.

In a paragraph towards the end it is stated: "As they left the city limits she stopped, and began to cry ... She was really counting the service stations along the road on the way back to the Home" This stood out to me for two reasons. Reason one being, if this story is in first person, Ethel would not have known what her sister is seeing in the car. Ethel is at home, her 'sister' is in the car, they are in two completely different locations. Reason the second is Bowles uses "back to the Home". Ethel was the patient, not her sister, her sister had not been admitted to the Home, Ethel would be the one returning. There is also a lot of mirroring in these last paragraphs, they both have rocks in their mouth, they both taste blood, they both can see the road leading back to the Home, and it is raining in both locations.