Camp Harmony from Nisei Daughter

9. Extend “Camp harmony: is told from First-person point of view—that is, using the word I. What information might the third person account include that Sone’s cannot?

  

In the story Camp Harmony from Nisei Daughter, written by Monica Sone, the character Sone was the main narrator. Her job is to deliver the story through her point of view, and fortunately, she had done a wonderful job in delivering details and her emotional feelings through out the trip to the interment camp. However, she rarely mentioned about the other people’s motions while she wasn’t there with them, whose is her mother or big brother, or the neighbors that she meets, or any soldiers that vigils the living area of her. It was quite obvious of the reason that she didn’t talk about the others movement! In fact, she cannot, since the first-person point of view of her didn’t allow her to know.

If we switch the story into third person account, the story might have gone a little bit different. It maybe will keep the same thing that focus mainly on Sone, however, generally covers the other as well, such as what they do in the mean time. For example, we know that the block leader would knock the door and announced lunch time (p518), but is that the only thing that he does, or there are more like guarding, playing cards with his friends…or where had he been before the announcement of lunch time, ect. Nevertheless, there will be a limit of describing character’s feelings due to this third-person account. Everybody had a unique perspective on everything, not just humans, but if we personified an animal, a bug, furniture, I think they are also going to have their own point of view of thing. Depends on the character who told the story, I indicated we would have been converted into diverse point of view.