Fish

What is the author's style in Fish by Jill McCorkle?

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Fish is written in first person point of view with the narrator addressing her dying father as "you." The use of direct address conveys intimacy and privacy, a communication between the speaker and a specific person. The communication is not intended for everyone, just the one being addressed. Direct address, thus, draws the reader into what in meant for only one other person. To add immediacy to this sense of privacy, McCorkle writes the story in present tense. The narrator's memories are reported in the past tense, certain past events in the father's life are also reported in past event, but the time stretching out in the present are the hours of vigil at the dying man's bedside. The narrator says, "When you come home from the hospital this time, we know that it is the beginning of the end." Some present time later, she says, "On the afternoon you die, we keep asking for a sign, a blink, a twitch." The family wants some communication back from the father, some acknowledgement. They sing to him; they hope he hears them. In the end, at the moment before he dies, "when your eyes were still able to blink," she says, he speaks his final words, "You are my heart; that's all that there is." The deep connection between father and daughter is conveyed. The direct address and the present tense put the reader right there in the room when the father dies, right at the moment of dying.

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