It is possible that the most innocent and impressionable human beings written about in literature are children. With so little life experience and limited understanding, children may perhaps be overly honest and receptive. In ASTU 100, we have read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and Obasan by Joy Kogawa. Both works of literature are told through the perspective of a young girl. Additionally, they both offer a seemingly new or emerging perspective on events that already have an established history. For example, Obasan is the tale of the Japanese experience in British Columbia during the Second World War. World War Two narratives are commonplace in our culture, but before Obasan, the tale of Japanese Canadians was largely ignored. The same can be said for Satrapi’s recount of the turmoil in Iran during the 70s and 80s.
So why are youthful narrators so useful? Children have little analytical experience, and they largely lack a holistic understanding of even their own experiences. However, these traits create a unique narration. A young child’s inability to process their experiences can allow readers to do so for themselves. Further, children are often unable to change or alter their situation. When introducing a possibly entirely unique storyline into an overwhelming precedence of accepted history, child narration is a tool an author can use to find a place within the accepted history. A child’s perpsective highlights the lack of control the victims had over their circumstance. It is much more difficult for a reader to blame a child for their experiences, amplifying the tragedy of the event. Further, a child’s ability to retell an event is often limited in bias. It allows the author to chronicle events simply by what happened, giving the reader room to draw their own conclusions.
I would argue that child narration is an effective tool for authors to further their exploration of the singular Real Truth. The nature of the stories told by Satrapi and Kogawa demand some level of witnessing, as (at the time of their publication) their stories had yet to be integrated into the mainstream narrative. Telling their stories from the perspective of a young girl grants both authors a sense of accountability. The child has yet to form a bias, but is able to understand and recount the events occurring around them. In this way, a young child is the ideal witness, and therefore narrator.
Kogawa, Joy. Obasan. New York: Anchor, 1994. Print
Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York, NY Pantheon, 2003. print
I completely agree that children are ideal narrators as they are unbiased yet still capable of understanding some aspects of what is happening. It could also be accounted to the fact that children generally do not filter their thoughts or opinions so by using their point of view you get all the details, and as you said the Real Truth. With Persepolis the three voices help the readers understand certain things that Marji cannot explain from her child point of view. Yet without Marji’s view, we would be subject to the bias of Marjane. I would question whether or not you would be able to tell historical events in the same way as Persepolis solely from the point of view of a child.
I agree with what you are saying here Miranda. Because children are not fully socially attuned to what is happening, they are able to focus more on what is actually occurring and how that makes them feel as an individual, rather than weather or not what is happening is socially acceptable and how society says it should make them feel. In this way we are able to see a more accurate representation of what is happening, rather than the version of a memory of the events that have been influenced by other members of society, high standing political elites, and people who have an agenda that makes them want a the events to be remembered differently than they occurred.