Only Children | Techniques

Only Children Techniques

Critically speaking, the most unique quality of Only Children is Lurie's narrative technique. Surprisingly few writers for adults adopt a child's point of view. Such perspective is especially challenging because although we were all once children, we can only remember select thoughts we had as children, not how we thought. How can the adult really know how the child knows? Lurie's interest in this issue, and especially with finding an answer that favors the child's intellectual aptitude and dignity, certainly adds to the complexity of her technique: She must convincingly adopt a child's perspective and make us respect it, while remaining aware of the fact that it cannot honestly be represented by an adult. To deal with these contradictory demands, she layers many perspectives—Mary Ann's, occasionally Lolly's, and an impersonal dramatic point of view, especially as concerns the actions and dialogue of the parents. This allows us to see what...
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