A Change In Voice

A Change in Voice

            When being forced into a situation that you aren’t completely sure of or very against, one tends to distance themselves from the problem. You take a deep breath, tell yourself that it is only temporary, and make your way through it. You don’t involve yourself fully in what is taking place.

            When Santha wraps up her memoir By Any Other Name with the statement, “But I put it happily away because it happened to a girl named Cynthia and I was never really particularly interested in her.” It is understandable to see how she was able to space herself from the problem fully. She was helped along with the displacement with the name assigned from the headmistress that gave her the option of almost playing a character as you would in a play while she was at the school.

            Although it is understandable to see the distance, when you look at the text in full, it makes it hard to be fully convinced by this statement. This is written as it would when she was little. The way she portrays herself during the time makes her come off as very naive and young. This last statement to end it is a very big realized for such a small little girl.

            While reading you get a since of a small child observing life. When she hits you with this, it is very cleaver, but makes you very questionable of if it had happened at that moment, or something that she could have very easily come to a realization to later in life. Not being able to but a direct feeling on it while she was younger. There is a sudden change in the voice in her writing. Yes, it makes her come off as someone who has just been rounded by an experience, but it makes it hard to believe her writing as it makes her sound like a totally different person.