Point Of View In Amalia Salamat's Things I Would Tell Her

In the reading selection Things I Would Tell Her (If I Could) written by Amalia Salamat, three elements of fiction are used to unravel the story. In the short story, Salamat uses character to show the evolution of the story from start to finish, point of view in order to get a closer understanding as to how the events reveal themselves through the protagonist’s eyes and how it affects her and finally, symbolism which represents the protagonist’s longings and true intentions.

The protagonist in the story is an unnamed girl who moved from the city and now resides in the province. It is safe to assume that the girl’s age ranges from 10-13 years old since she quotes “Very few people transfer from one elementary to another,

The story is narrated using the first person point of view, the girl takes the readers through the course of the story with her own set of eyes. It’s as if the narrator allows the reader’s into what it’s like being in her position; what it’s like in her own pair of shoes. While reading the story, the reader gets a feel that the protagonist feels like she knows everything that’s going on, as if she were omniscient, although she isn’t. She merely knows more than she should and she gets her information from heresays. Another ingenious way Salamat used in making the story flourish is that she made the narrator an unreliable narrator. Unreliable narrators are usually common in stories told in the first person point of view. One key in revealing an unreliable character is that it is made obvious from the very beginning of the story. In the story, it is seen how the narrator has a biased view on things, she doesn’t stay objective. Another way in order to point out how the narrator is unreliable is admitting to being mentally ill. In paragraph 25, the girl quotes “But still, I was depressed by it all.” It is made evident how the girl must be capricious, that she sees things in a warped and foggy way. Amalia Salamat uses point of view to show the protagonist’s chracter

The author uses these three elements to get the message of the story across to the readers. In the end, the protagonist becomes more self-aware and questions why she has to act the way she does. This is a truly profound story that reveals itself to the readers and that’s what makes it a literary