Barthelme's story is set in a city during an unspecified modern period. The unnamed narrator is telling the story primarily in the past tense. To tell the story, the author uses a nonlinear and plotless narrative with unusual word choice and sentence structure.
"The Indian Uprising" does not read like a traditional story in which there are characters with relatively well-defined roles and backgrounds who appear in a linear or chronological plot with a definable beginning and end. The story's lack of structure is echoed by the "destructuring" activity going in the story: the narrator is involved in a battle that is destroying his city while he witnesses the dissolution of his relationship with Sylvia.
Several times the narrator says to himself, "I decided that I knew nothing," indicating a deep sense of.....
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