Sui Sin Far's "Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of a Eurasian" and Theodore Dreiser's "Old Rogaum and His Theresa"--offer vivid pictures of immigrant experience and ethnic diversity in the late nineteenth century. At the same time the stories illustrate two very different kinds of narration. After you've read and annotated the stories, write a concise paragraph or two in which you discuss the narrative choices these two stories represent. What kind of narrator does each story have?
What are our sources of information and perspective in the story (first person narration? transparent minds within a story? quoted speech? described gestures and actions?)?
What kinds of assumptions does the narrator of the story seem to have about his or her audience?
Do you get any sense of what kind of effect the narrator hopes to create in his or her audience? What are the signs of this in the text?