The Speaker (Jonathan)

The speaker of the story curates an entire language of punctuation marks to help explain how his family communicates. The story is largely autobiographical, so the speaker is also named Jonathan, like the author. The speaker is witty and creative, approaching his family's communication with an ironic tone. He sees the flaws in his family's inability to speak about anything sentimental or painful in a direct manner. But the speaker is also deeply entrenched in his family's traditions, and he too is complicit in communicating with his family members using the same skirting techniques he describes. Readers may interpret the speaker to be critical of his family's ways of communicating, but as the story progresses his tone shifts to one of pain, worry, and appreciation for the uniqueness of his family. The speaker is torn between feeling as though his family cannot speak honestly with one...