Friday, May 6, 2011

The Sweet Hereafter

1. Why does Banks choose to use the first-person perspective for this novel?

2. Why does Banks choose to use these specific characters for his narrators? Why not focus on one? Why not have an additional character narrate the story?

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

1.Banks uses the first-person perspective to grab readers attention and to have a better understanding of their story.
2.Banks chooses different characters to tell the story in order for readers to understand their perspectives.

-Stephanie Santos & Kathleen Rodriguez

Anonymous said...

1. He choose to write in first-person so the character could show what they feel and their emotions, and so the reader can have a better understanding of the situation.

2. He choose different characters because they have different perspectives. He choose differnt charactes so the reader could have a better understanding. If Banks had another character narrating the story then it would be to much for the reader.

-Brian Escalante
Sandy Ornelas

Christina Cecil, and Elizabeth Vega said...

1. He writes the novel in 1st person because it is more personal and uses Pathos to get the readers intrested. It gives different people's perspectives on what happened and how they felt/more information.

2. He chooses the bus driver, Dolores Driscoll who was a part of the accident, he uses Billy Ansel who was diving his truck behind the bus when the accident happened. He uses the lawyer, Mitchell Stephens to show how the other people in the town try to find someone to blame and how the lawyer used those people against one another. He uses Nichole Burnell who is a victim of the bus crash and survived she ends the lawsuit that the lawyer has started. He doesnt focus on just one character becuase he wants to show more than one side of the story and how the other people were affected. Becuase by using other characters there wouldn't have been the same feeling of completeness as there is.

Anonymous said...

By using the first person perspective Banks approaches the reader on a deeper more emotional level, making the tragedy more personal.
Banks chooses Dolores because she was driving the bus, and she is the only person who knows all the details of the accident. Billy is used because his story goes beyond the bus tragedy. Mitchell Stephens represents an individual trying to correct his mistakes with his own daughter by crusading for other children's causes. Nichole represents the acceptance that 'accidents happen'. It would be impossible to tell this story effectively through only one perspective, it would not give the reader enough depth of character connection.
The story would loose the emotional connection if it was narrated in the third person. The toll of the tragedy for the entire town would be lost by only using one person's perspective.

-Laura S. Niederauer
-Madi McKenney

Anonymous said...

Fernando Barrios
Erika Perez
Roberto Picos

1. Banks uses the first person perspective in the novel to make it more personal, and realistic to the readers. It will be more understandable to the readers of each characters perspective.

2. There is always two stories for a the same incident. Banks uses the bus driver to describe the situation and the crash. The victim is used for sympathy towards all who were affected. The lawyer plays both sides and also plays the instigator. Finally, the blamed woman tells her story at the end. Any crash has different perspectives and stories, so the readers can understand what each character went though individually. We as the readers, can not assume the other character went through the same experience.

Anonymous said...

1. Banks chooses to write in first person perspective so that the readers can get a better idea of each character's thoughts and experiences. The reader will also be able to visualize everything that is going on.

2. Banks is making sure the reader gets the full story from everybody's perspective giving the reader details and specifics to each event that took place.

--Evan Vizcarra & Brian Martinez

Anonymous said...

Banks choose to use the first-person to interpret the story from the point of view for each character.

Banks choses these specific characters for his narrators because every character had their own point of view about the accident, Banks does not focuses on one character because there would be no other side of the story. If Banks adds an additional character to narrate this story then I would be much difficult to understand the story and it would confuse the readers of what perspective to believe.

Emanuel Garcia
Jessica Gonzalez

Anonymous said...

1.Banks uses the first-person perspective to grab readers attention and to have a better understanding of their story.
2.Banks chooses different characters to tell the story in order for readers to understand their perspectives. It shows readers the life of the characters before and after the accident. The accident effected each characters life differently. The reason Banks did not focus on one narrator is because the accident completely altered each of the characters lives in a different way.

-Stephanie Santos & Kathleen Rodriguez

Anonymous said...

1.Banks chooses to use the first- person perspective because; he wanted to make the book seem real. Banks wanted to make the situations in the book to be realistic as if it happens in real life situations.
2.Banks chooses to use these characters for narrators because, he wanted to make the characters have similarities and those characters are whom impact the story more. If Banks would focus on one character the story would be different. If another character would narrate the story it would add information not needed or not that important.

Anonymous said...

Gladys Mayra Delgado
Dominica Martinez

1.Banks uses the first-person perspective to make the story seem realistic. The novel is not based on the tragedy it is based on the characters’ lives before and after the accident. It makes the story feel more realistic because it is somebody telling you about their tragic life.

2.Banks placed Nichole because she was physically and physiologically changed, and because she was close to the accident and a major eye witness to the incident. Dolores was placed in the book because she was the driver of the bus a curial character needed to tell the story. Billy was placed because he was an eye witness from outside the bus; he was able to tell another aspect of the accident. Mitchell was an outsider not from the town, and was able to give an outside perspective of how the accident affected the town’s people.

Anonymous said...

1. He choose to write in first-person so the character could show what they feel and their emotions, and so the reader can have a better understanding of the situation.

2. He choose different characters because they have differnt perspectives. The Lawyer is an outsider and he does not live in that town. Nichole Burnell and Dolores were on the bus when the accident happend. Billy was one of the people who witnessed the accident. If Banks focused on one character it would only show one side of the story. If Banks had another character narrating the story it would be confusing and would not have the same emotion and feeling as the other characters.

Brian Escalante
Sandy Ornelas

Anonymous said...

1. Banks uses the first person perspective because it forces the reader to put themselves in position of the person being focused on at that time.

2. He picks the characters that are closest to the accident and the trial. He chooses these three characters because these four are the only ones in the town that know the truth of what actually happened on that day.

Eduardo Figueroa
Erik Figueroa
Freddy Soza

Anonymous said...

1. Russel Banks uses the first person perspective in narratiing the novel, "The Sweet Hereafter" because he wanted to make the points clear and wanted the reader to have a more logical understanding of the experience the characters are dealing with.

2. Banks uses the 4 characters in the story to tell that the story in different people's perspectives. He also chose these 4 characters because they seem like they are some of the main people in the story, such as: Dolores being the driver during the accident, and Nicole surviving the accident.

Greyson McDaniel
Howie Lin

Anonymous said...

1.Banks uses first person narration to make the readers relate to the protagonists in the story.

2.Bank chooses to use these specific character for his story because he wants readers to see the accident with different perspectives. If you add an additional character, it would throw everything off and only focusing on one will give a biased point of view.

-Beatriz Dominguez, Leticia Orozco, and David Maciel

Anonymous said...

1) He writes the novel in first person point of view because he wants to show how each character feels ,and wants the readers to know what the characters have in there minds.
2)Banks chose different characters because each one play a different role and if there were more characters they would make the story longer and confuse the reader.
-uber Garcia
-Gabriel becerra

Anonymous said...

He wrote in first person perspective to let reader know what happened from his own eyes and his point of view.

He chose to write in third person because he wants people to get a feel of other peoples opinions and so readers can see situations in different stories instead of just one.

-Y. Clay

Anonymous said...

1. Banks writes the novel in first person because it helps the reader connect with the characters better, it makes the story more personal. Also, it allows for a variety of opinions/viewpoints to be explored instead of just one.

2. Banks uses several different characters so the reader can interpret the story from several different vantage points, this helps eliminate the bias that each character may have. Banks wanted only certain perspectives to be conveyed to the reader, and these are the four characters who's point of views narrate the story.

Nancy Flores
Curtis Fagot
James Wolfenstein

Anonymous said...

1 Banks decides to make the book 1st person because it gives a better perspective to the whole situation that happened in the town. Also to gives the story as “being in that persons shoes” so the reader feels like if they are that person and not just get influenced by a certain character and prevent any bias from happening.
2 The characters chosen were affected differently by the incident that happened in Sam Dent. The story gives the different perspectives so that it can show how different people were affected by the incident and how differently each person was affected as in Nicole becoming paralyzed, Dolores suffering mentally, Billy losing his twins, and Mitchell Stevens anger towards the people who were responsible for the accident. These characters already provide all the different situations that happened in the incident as in mental stress, physical disability, anger , and loss of loved ones.
-
Raul Mendoza
Ramon Duran

Anonymous said...

1. Banks tells the story in the first-person perspective because it shows the characters backstories and how they personally reacted to the accident and past events.
2. The reason he choose the characters is because each one has a significant role in the plot. It is not based on one character since it only shows one view of the accident and what happened afterward. All the characters in the book were sufficient enough to illustrate the cause of the accident and the lawsuit.

-Michael Gomez
-Carlo Buccat

Anonymous said...

1. Banks chose the first-person erspective for this novel because it gives the different point of view of each character.

2. Banks chose these specific characters for his narrators to give a different perspective of each: the view of the bus driver, Dolores, who might have felt guilty for causing the accident. Billy, a parent who lost his kids in the accident. Mitchell Stephens, the lawyer. Nicole Burnell, a child who survived the accident. He gives one point of view from one who was to blame, the lawyer, the survivor, and the one who lost their kids. An additional character wouldn't be necessary.

--I. Hernandez
S. Morales

Anonymous said...

1. Banks chooses to use the first-person perspective for this novel to make it more personal and emotional for the reader. First-person narrator will make the reader understand how they’re thinking and why their thinking that way.
2. The four characters that Banks chooses as narrators of the novel were all part of the accident. He wanted to show the reader each of their perspectives on the accident. He also had the lawyer as a narrator to tell the story indirectly.

-Khulood Hussin
-Maria Bravo
-Ivan Matip

Anonymous said...

1.Banks tells the story first person perspective to show their reaction of the story after the accident and before, and grab the reader’s attention to get a better understanding.

2.He uses on character to tell the story of one perspectives to show the errors of one person and also to help the reader understand and not get all confuses about what happen. It shows one person perspective because everyone in the story had their own thoughts and opinions on the accidents.
-- V Nard

Anonymous said...

1. banks uses 1st person because he wants the reader to be able to view all perspectives of the characters and to understand and get in touch with the story a lot more.
2. banks chooses to have various characters to narrate the story because he wants the readers to be able to have numerous thoughts on the story, and having various characters makes the reader have various thoughts on each individual character.
-a. Razo

Anonymous said...

1.Banks used first person perspective in order to shown everyone’s point of view.
2. Banks chooses to use these specific characters in order to show the outline of the narration.In other words Banks wants to tell the story through main characters that will help the reader see what is going on in the story.These specific characters will help the reader see what really happened in the story.Banks does not use an additional narrator to tell the story because it would be less confusing.
-eduardo torres

Anonymous said...

1. Banks writes the story in first-person because it makes the narrator close up and personal. The reader can identify with the character and experience their deep, inner thoughts and feelings. First person allows the reader to enter the world of the narrator to his or her personal thoughts and feelings.

2. Banks uses the different characters to tell the story from different people's perspectives. These characters were also the main characters in the story that had to do with the accident. Getting different perspectives helps understand the story more in depth.

Anonymous said...

1. Banks writes the story in first-person because it makes the narrator close up and personal. The reader can identify with the character and experience their deep, inner thoughts and feelings. First person allows the reader to enter the world of the narrator to his or her personal thoughts and feelings.

2. Banks uses the different characters to tell the story from different people's perspectives. These characters were also the main characters in the story that had to do with the accident. Getting different perspectives helps understand the story more in depth.

- Brian Garcia

Arnold said...

1 Banks decides to make the book 1st person because it gives a better perspective to the whole situation that happened in the town. Also to gives the story as “being in that persons shoes” so the reader feels like if they are that person and not just get influenced by a certain character and prevent any bias from happening. 2 The characters chosen were affected differently by the incident that happened in Sam Dent. The story gives the different perspectives so that it can show how different people were affected by the incident and how differently each person was affected as in Nicole becoming paralyzed, Dolores suffering mentally, Billy losing his twins, and Mitchell Stevens anger towards the people who were responsible for the accident. These characters already provide all the different situations that happened in the incident as in mental stress, physical disability, anger , and loss of loved ones. - Raul Mendoza Ramon Duran