Analyse af novellen 'The New Girl'

”The New Girl” written assignment Summary of the short story:

“The New Girl” is a short story about the two young “friends” Allison and the narrator. They both live in this white lower-middle-class neighborhood called Prospect Street. One day a little black girl turns up on their street. The girl has just moved in the house across the street. The narrator smiles to the black girl, but Allison tells her to get out of there due to the fact that she doesn’t want to play with niggers. The narrator choose to imitate Allison’s behavior, but she/he later on regrets it and wants to apologize. Thereafter, the narrator sees the girl playing outside with her friends, but the narrator never speaks to her. Once the black girl and her mother move, the narrator describes the feeling of having a tight knot in the stomach, because he/she never apologized. Analysis of the short story:

Narration/point of viewThe story is told by a first person narrative. The narrator describes him- herself as “I”, and therefore we can tell that the story has a first person narrative. Already in the start of the story, we’re told; “Allison’s father was watering the lawn, and Allison and I rode our bikes.” The narrator is quite young but still reliable - I can tell that by the way she/he describes the situation. It´s the narrator him- or herself who experiences the situation, and we see it through his/her eyes. The characters are described indirectly by what they say or do. We don’t know much about these two kids. What we get to learn about them, we learn by their behavior. For example by Allisson’s sentence when the little black girl turns up on their street; “As I said hi to the girl, I heard Allison say, “Get out of here, nigger,” with such contempt that I froze.” This tells us something about how Allison feels about black people.