Narrative Theory and Stories that Speak to Us - by Cynthia L. Selfe and the DALN Consortium
After a short pause, Keith begins relating the complicating action of his story, making an effort to assume the perspective of his own fifteen-year-old self in the story world he is describing (“I’m walkin’ down the street…”). He remembers a car, “crammed” with “eight, nine, maybe ten kids…all boys” driving past and Keith, laughing like his fifteen-year old self in the story, notes that it reminded him of “one of those cars in the circus with all of the clowns,” and so, he notes sotto voce, “I laughed.” The boys in the car, he recalls, got “kind of upset,” and “zoomed around again, just so they could get out ‘Faggot! Fag!! Queer!’” Recalling the words, Keith ventriloquizes the yells of the boys who taunted him.
Stepping out of the story world associated with his fifteen-year old self, Keith evaluates his own reaction to the taunts: “Now at the time I hadn’t really dealt with the fact that I was gay… I didn’t really know what to do about it or even if I wanted to do anything about it...So I was kind of appalled.” Jumping back in his 15 year-old-character, Keith wonders in an imitation of a frantic inner voice, “How do they know? How do they know? I haven’t said anything about this to anybody! How do they know?”
