1st person:
I put on my shirt, brush off my shoes with a piece of paper, and listen to the sound of a bell that seems to run through the passageways of the house until it arrives at my door. I look out into the hallway. Aura is walking along it with a bell in her hand. She turns her head to look at me and tells me that breakfast is ready. I try to detain her but she goes down the spiral staircase, still ringing that black-painted bell as if she were trying to wake up a whole asylum, a whole boarding – school.
3rd person:
He puts on his shirt, brushes off his shoes with a piece of paper, and listens to the sound of a bell that seems to run through the passageways of the house until it arrives at his door. He looks out into the hallway. Aura is walking along it with a bell in her hand. She turns her head to look at him and tells him that breakfast is ready. He tries to detain her but she goes down the spiral staircase, still ringing that black-painted bell as if she were trying to wake up a whole asylum, a whole boarding- school.
(Page 840, Section 2)
One of the difficulties I faced were changing up the grammar between the first person and the second person. Personally, I’m pretty weak in grammar so the thought of changing one to another really filled me with dread. In the first person point of view, I was – unconsciously- being pulled into the story by thinking how I would react or feel if that was me. But in the third person point of view, it was more natural for me since to me that’s just a story without my emotion in it.
Crystal Wong
One main difference I found here was the changes in tenses in order to go from first to third person. I agree with Crystal that the changes in grammar was a little tricky, as I felt the same way. I also agree that in first person you’re pulled into the story while in third person there is not much emotion. It is clear in Crystal’s translations how different the story becomes when you change what person it’s written in. I found the passage interesting as well because she included one where he was going after Aura, so you were able to see the difference in how you were more pushed towards knowing about the main character’s thoughts rather than hers.
As a reader, second person makes me feel as if I am being told to do something, as if the whole story is a command instead of a story. This is probably caused because the majority of the texts we read from the beginning of our academic careers, we either read texts that are written in first or second person. The first person makes me jump into the shoes of the character. It is like I am telling the story, I am the narrator. As opposed to third person which gives me a mental image of what the characters may look like and what they are doing. For instance: In the original passage it states “you close the door and look up at the skylight that serves as a roof. You smile when you find that the..” (Fuentes, 836). Since it is in second person I feel like as a reader I am obliged to smile and look up and imagine what the write wants me to imagine. Where as if it stated “I close the door… I smile”, it sound as if I am doing it voluntarily.
Rosshelle Munoz
I feel that this passage, when written in the second person, conveys a sense of direct communication that the first or third person forms of speech cannot. By constantly reiterating “you” as the subject of any action, it immerses the reader within that specific part of the story, feeling as if you are actually doing what is being described. Like Crystal translated, the third person example of what was once “You look out into the hallway” (840), becomes “He looked out into the hallway”, adding a layer between the reader and the character’s actions that Fuentes chose to remove by speaking in the second person. Another advantage to the second person style of speech is in maintaining a distance between the reader and the character’s actions. While third person is too removed, choosing to speak in the first person may have supplanted the reader into the story too heavily, ruining some of the mystery behind Aura and the historian.