The extended analysis about Aren't You Happy for Me Essay

The extended analysis about Aren't You Happy for Me - Essay Example Another writer that considers the twists and turns of existence is Nuruddin Farah. Like ‘Aren’t You Happy for Me?’, Farah’s ‘My Father, the Englishman, and I’ considers the complexities of life and familial relations. Specifically this story traces a child’s remembrance of interacting with an Englishman at a treating signing occasion. This essay examines the specific narrative, symbolic, and metaphorical techniques Bausch implements in creating meaning in ‘Aren’t You Happy for Me?’ and the literary techniques Farah implements in ‘My Father, the Englishman, and I’. While Bausch explicates the story in a clear way, the narrative is structured as to heighten the meaning. One of the overarching recognitions, in these regards, is the way Bausch constructs the story in a suspenseful way. Perhaps the most prominent means that Bausch constructs the story to gain suspense is by having the daughter gradually reveal more information about her situation. In this way, the story begins with the daughter teaching her father to pronounce someone’s name. This way the reader immediately begins to question what is occurring in the story. This method is implemented as a major plot device throughout much of the text. Another means of expanding suspense throughout the story is through the daughter, Melanie, gradually informing her father of the full extent of her sensational situation. In this way, she begins by informing her father that she is getting engaged. Following this revelation she indicates that she is also pregnant. The final revelation, however, is that the man she is marrying and having a child with is actually sixty-three years old. Melanie states, â€Å"She took a breath. "Dad, William's sixty - he's - he's sixty - sixty-three years old" (Bausch). In this way Bausch situates the information that is revealed in a progressive way as a means of heightening the tension and suspense thr oughout the story. While the development of suspense is a major narrative technique, Bausch also particularly cognizant of the way that information is revealed to different characters, as well as the reader. Indeed, the story remains strongly linked to the means that the information is revealed to particular characters. One of the most prominent concerns in terms of the way information is revealed is the way that the mother is away from the events on the phone. During the early portions of the story she is only referenced in the garden outside. Bausch writes, â€Å"Outside the window, his wife, with no notion of what she was about to be hit with, looked through the patterns of shade in the blinds and, seeing him, waved† (Bausch). In this instance, Bausch not only indicates the wife is unaware of the events, but uses her ignorance as a means of creating an ironic statement; this may also function as criticism of the patriarchal household, where women actively assume a subordin ate role. An additional concern is the recognition that the reader remains ignorant of the daughter’s new in the same way that the father remains ignorant. Namely, at the same time Melanie reveals information to the father the reader discovers this information. Ultimately then Bausch’s use of suspense thoroughly allows the reader to experience the father’s state of surprise. While the narrative elements of suspense and information are highly important in the text, Bausch also pays particular attention to other means of