What is the author's style in How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again by Joyce Carol Oates?

Even many years after the story's publication, the structure of "How I Contemplated" is still striking and somewhat unsettling to readers. The experimental form Oates uses is fragmentary and full of gaps. Instead of writing the story of an affluent young girl's temporary descent into a life on the streets and in a house of corrections, she gives readers only the girl's own notes for an essay that she may or may not ever write.

The sixteen-year-old girl who composes these notes for an essay is what is known as an unreliable narrator. She's the only one who tells the story, but the version she offers is limited and possibly altered by her narrow point of view. The device of the unreliable narrator enhances the story's effect. It would be unreasonable and unrealistic to expect a sixteen-year-old to render a complete and objective account of such a traumatic set of events. The sketchy, uncertain and sometime evasive narrative structure is typical of an adolescent's (especially a troubled one's) world view and contributes to the story's authenticity and power. Finally, the narrator's unreliability makes the openended and ambiguous ending possible. It's impossible to be certain if she is being sincere when she claims that she will "never leave home," and that she is "in love with everything here."