Sara Angela Rodriguez
A415-002/Chambers
Fiction Critique 1: Xanadu
and Back
21 January 2013
In Carolyn V. Sanchez short story Xanadu and Back she experiments with the use of different voices in
order to make two stories into one: one story being the story of the Gasp
family and their conflicts and the other being the story of her family and
their conflict. I find this story to be very interesting, especially the story
of Sanchez and her mother which I find to be more troubling than that of I.Q.
and his son Achilles (because they are two characters being made up by Sanchez
who is writing a story that is really a story being written by San chez…whoa
that was a mouth full). I think that the juxtaposition of the two stories
really brings out the conflict in both—it is a very good device. Another thing I
enjoyed in this story was the way that Sanchez, the Sanchez in the story not
the Sanchez writing the story, mixed modern day concepts with those from the
old west and those from Greek mythology and admits that she is doing so and
that we should forgive any misrepresentations we find because she’s not too
good with history. I think that this address to the audience, this ‘breaking of
the 4th wall’ is one great tool used by Sanchez in order to make the
reader feel like we’re hearing a story about the construction of a story of the
construction of the story (once again I find this whole concept to be pretty
intense).
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