This short story requires reader’s cooperation and imagination as it only can be acknowledged partially because it is narrated by a child who is naïve and is not yet capable of understanding the world properly and therefore is unreliable.
narration
behaviour
stream of consciousness
adoring uncle
not questioning things
perception
his thinking
describing circumstances but not understanding it
How he perceives it not what happened
and...and...and
complicated sentences
unlogical perception of world
offering Lizzie money for telling her what present she gets
offering to turn himself in if she pays him
corrupted by him
he pays him to unsee things
pays him for covering him while with women
presenting mother's and father's opinion
reader can choose side as he doesn't pick one but is obvious who is right
mama said grandpa wont get present, period
depends on our interpretation
unintentionally turns him in
some things arent important for him to notice
hints
you dont say to people what you father is doing
I gave you money so shut up
blackmailing
otherwise he finds someone else
manipulation
georgie helps him bacause of the profit and not understanding how uncle gets the money or what he is doing
not mentioning the main event because he doesnt get that its important
money obsession
being bribed by uncle Rodney
always thinking about how to make a profit
aunt Louisa coming the day they should leave doesnt seem strange, he thinks she came to help them with present for grandpa, they didnt want to talk about such important matter in front of "the nigger" and georgie thinks its the present for grandpa
for example when aunt Louisa comes, he thinks she came to help with present for grandpa
for example page 5 - starting paragraphs with not going on the train and ending with sheriff and not telling grandpa, through papas clothes, crying of women and events of last night and then some direct speech and again a long paragraph - aunt begging sheriff to drinking through bonds and not saying it in front of gerogie
tonic = alcohol
women crying in the hack, suddenly georgie seeng mottstown and changing topic and asking about fireworks and thinking about holly wreaths
not thinkings about uncle rodney missing but about not getting money
helping him escape and not telling parents (for money obviously) -> not understanding why it is so important to keep him locked
lying to a man with badge again for uncle -> not understanding who he is
being influenced by rossie he eventually starts thinking about a present for him and also for reward he gets for it -> money
seeing events but not understanding them
woman caught by the man and being silenced, yet georgie doesnt think of it as kidnapping but it is what it is, he spills the beans because he was ttold to do so
telling grandpa he wanted to buy him a gift but couldnt and earning money from him for effort
seeing man carrying a window blind with something, he thinking it was the jewelry yet missing it is a dead body
and before he mistaken fireworks with shooting
in the end he is excited by a simple possum not knowing what he was sort of witness of
p 1
listening to adults, hearing exactly what they talk about but not seeing the meaning p 11
saying the important things without realizing see perception
secondary sources
A companion to american short story
reading faulkner: collected stories
seven-year-old narrator
it is not narrated retrospectively with evaluation of the events
"undestands virtually nothing that goes on around him"
he thinks he is doing business with his uncle but in fact he is hired to watch out for the husband of a woman with whom he has an affair
when his mother and aunt are weeping that their brother left with family fortune, he describes it as fact, common event, nothing special
he doesnt recognize that the object at the end is his dead uncle
he doesnt know his uncle is engaged with many women and that he stole family fortune
the innocent narration also covers the dark sides of the story
he only thinks about the many
mistakens the gunfire with fireworks
for the boy it is a story about his uncle whom he admires and loves X for his relatives it is about fraud, theft and murder
it is on the adult reader to connect the things behind childs narration, understanding things that the child cant
correcting perspective
it workd on the function of point of view without which the story wiuld be fundamentally different
the primary effect rises from the limited perspective of narrator
georgie is greedy and megalomaniacal
initiation story -putting protagonist through something he has never experienced before -- child in contact with sex, violence, death, but the initiation is supressed by the action
georgie is a great observer but is blind to the facts
he helps a husband to catch rodney into trap without realizing it, and is unaware that he died
naive througout the whole story
paralels between uncle and nephew, and paralels between faulkners other works
Georgies unique interpretation makes the story comic, but the events arent amusing at all
the story and the narrator cause very complex reactions
humour coming from georgie being accomplice to uncle rodney - seducing married women and relieving them of their money and jewelry
georgie missing moral guideposts
doing business with mrs tucker being an euphemism for his sexual affairs that georgie unwittingly helps with
mama and papas argument about helping rodney who stole money and gerogie father helped to cover it
Rodney spending more money than he earns
remember the nigger - racial ideology because niggas already know
but they couldnt fool uncle rodney - overestimating uncle, adoring him, if only he told everyone
rodneys body in the window blind