Analyse af 'Tea with the birds'

In the modern society people have begun to live close to each other. For some, a rather intimidating way of living, causing them to seek to seclusion. This causes them in timidity to determine their impressions of other people by presumptions and prejudices, which are often unfounded and wrong. Once they’ve labelled the foreign things, they can put a wall and seclude themselves. But if these walls of presumptions are torn down - often helped along by their curiosity towards their surroundings - they begin to develop and open themselves.

The first-person narrator, gives us a unique and intimate perspective to understand the narrator’s way of thinking in correlation to her way of interacting among others. Especially her descriptions of her surroundings, contributes to comprehend her personality. The quote “Curiosity almost overcame my rancor” tells us that she, like the rest of her neighbors, is eager to understand or at least label those who are reluctant to unveil themselves. In contrary, we also learn that she is very reserved. "I enjoyed my seclusion too much to share it willingly" The fact that we learn from herself that she enjoys the seclusion, helps us to understand why many of her protests and frustrations are kept to herself in timidity. The first-person point of view, also allows the author to implicate information about the narrator, when she describes her surroundings. “"he reminded me of a bird I had once seen in a provincial zoo. Small drab-looking in its cage,"(P.2, L.43) In this quote, we are given a useful insight to her mind, from which we can infer that she has a very imagery mental. This minimalistic tool in the first-person point of view, allows the reader to interpret many different meanings to the story. The first-person point of view also draws the reader into the world of the narrator. “and the worst crime of all is to be an outsider. I should know; I’m one myself” From any other point of view, this quote would only describe her surroundings and her position in them. However, from a first-person point of view, we are drawn into her world and we are allowed to feel how it would feel to be in her position. In short, the first-person point of view, gives the reader a unique and subjective position to interpret the story and the narrator.