Mount Pleasant Written by Mary-Louise Buxton

The short story "Mount pleasant" is written by Mary-Louise Buxton in 2005. The writer makes use of a very unique narrative technique, which allows the reader to experience the world through the eyes of a child. I will analyse and interpret this short story with focus on narrative technique and Mary-Louise Buxton's language.

The short story is told in first person and the narrator being the young child Elizabeth, which means, that the reader will experience a personal connection to the story, because you'll se it from just one person's point of view. The way you can tell, if it a first-person narrator is, if the narrator is using "I" or "me". This means, that the reader gets a limited insight in the families life An example of this is on the very first line, where "me" is written. We are experiencing the story through the eyes of a young girl named Elizabeth. She is about six years old. I am not certain, but on line 59 it says: "He's maybe nine or ten, not that much older than I am".

The way the whole story is told is actually kind of childish, which is shown, by the several odd words, that Elizabeth is making up. Some examples of this are on line 18, where Elizabeth is calling her mother "Mammy" instead of "mother" or "mom". Another example of this is on line 28, where she is calling her baby brother, George Willing, "babby" instead of just saying "baby". This whole playing with words establishes the fact, that the short story is marked of a child.

Elizabeth is certainly having a hard time focusing on things. This is shown when the father is putting the picture up on the top of the mantelpiece. Suddenly she starts talking about how the nuns used to compliment Elizabeth and her sister and give them socks. All followed by a list of sweets they used to buy, whereupon she turns back on the subject they were talking about. The way she always changes subjects is very childish and really shows, that Elizabeth is a child. The very special thing about this short story is, that it does not have a definitely climax, as usual short stories does. Instead, it leads us through a normal child's "adventure".

Looking at the relationship to her parents, Elizabeth is mostly having a hard time with her mother. This is shown on line 28-30, where Elizabeth describes how she isn't allowed to get "filthy dirty" like her big cousin Wilf or like her babby brother George William". Another example of this is on line 42-43: "Mammy bangs my cereal dish so hard down on the table, the milk spills over on to the clothes. I'm glad she did that and not me". This sentence not only shows Elizabeth's fear towards her mother, but the childish too. There is a kind of irony in the way the sentence is written. Instead of crying owing to the mother's behaviour,