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Graham The Prologue Analysis

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In the 1920’s after the Great War ended, there was a big difference between social classes in England. These differences are shown in The Prologue to a British novel. The prologue is about a girl named Queenie Bixton. The story takes place in a British Empire Exhibition that(which) Queenie visits with her family and their outdoor girl Emily and shed helper Graham. On their trip to the Exhibition Queenie wanted to see Africa and because her parents didn’t want to go with her, she went there with Graham and Emily. When they were in Africa Graham said for fun that Queenie should kiss the black man only because he didn’t think that the black man understood a word of English. He was just a ’’big nigger man’’ according to Graham. However, Graham …show more content…

The narrative technique in The prologue actually tells us very much about Queenie. The whole story is told from Queenies point of view, a childish point of view: ‘’The inside girls who helped mother with the pies. The outside girls who fed the pig and poultry’’ . A grownup would might not say outdoor girl but would rather call it a housekeeper. She also compares a dark woman with an inkwell ‘’ And In a hut sitting on dirt floor was a woman with skin as black as the ink that filled the inkwell In my school desk.’’ By her childish phrasing, we can tell that Queenie is a young girl who is about 8 to 10 years old and reason that she isn’t any younger is among other things because she noticed Graham and Emily Flirting. Completely young girls would presumably not have noticed that: ‘’Emily and Graham, who spent the time giggling and flirting over my head.’’ Nonetheless, we can’t get ignore the fact that she still is inexperienced for example when she shakes hands with a black man, she mentions that it felt like shaking hands with a totally normal human being and she was really surprised. In that way she has been affected by other’s opinion of the black especially Graham in this case. The author has been smart by using this narrative technique. We do not get a lot of specific information about any of the characters’ in the story. All we know about the characters is told indirectly, which works

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