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Analysis Of Truman Capote's 'My Side Of The Matter'

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One of the most important qualities within a story is whether or not the narrator is reliable. In most cases, the reader never takes this “narrator” into question as it is some omniscient being who is easily forgotten. The cases, in which the narrator comes into play in the reader’s mind, are typically when the narrator is of homodiegetic narration. This is a common device in more narrative texts and can even be used as a tool to make the reader feel a more personal touch to the story. If this trust between the narrator and the reader is breached the whole story it can take a different look towards the reader. This would make the narrator become an unreliable narrator, which in turn can add to so much more analytical fun. In Truman Capote’s short essay “My Side of the Matter” is the story of a young man who has recently moved in with his new wife’s aunt-in-laws. It is a story that is under the homodiegetic narration allowing for the reader to understand exactly Mr. Sylvester’s point of view of his situation, or should be say his side of the matter. From the beginning of the text Mr. Sylvester makes it very clear as to his opinion on his wife and her aunts by painting them with his words just as grotesquely as he sees them. He draws his new wife, Marge, up to be nothing special except maybe for the fact that she is a natural blond and even calling marrying her a mistake. He even goes so far to point out her lack of intelligence in his first description of his wife as she

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