Mount Pleasant Case

Mount Pleasant is a story written by Mary-Louise Buxton in 2005. The story is about a girl named Elizabeth and her sister Lena, whose family moved to the town Mount Pleasant. We are told the story through Elizabeth (the narrator) herself, and therefore we can conclude that it is a 1st person point of view, the story is told through. The language used in the short story is quite childish.

The story starts in medias res, and we dont get any form of introduction to the text. the story starts, "Mammy'll take to me with a wooden spoon if she catches me up in the attic. But "Be off and play," Daddy said. The only thing that we know at this point, is that the mother will hit the children with a wooden spoon if they play in the attic. The narrator technique and language used by Elizabeth are quite special, because it is told through a child's eyes, therefore the point of view seems very creative and imaginative. The story would properly be different if it was told by an adult. The 1st person narrator makes the story interesting, because the author Mary-Louise Buxton has played with the childish language. This gives place to some homemade words like, "Granny'Omi's Duckering Ball" and "Babby". These kind of words have big influence on the text and is what makes it childish for me, and it suits the story perfectly.

I would say that Elizabeth would be around 7-8 years old. We get that impression because she says: "She mentions the boy on the photo is about 9-10, not much older than her". We follow her through her everyday life and she seems like a normal kid. She seems to have trouble focusing and concentrating on one thing at the time, which actually makes the story a bit messy. As for an example, when she tell the reader about her mother's reaction, to her father putting up a picture of the unknown boy next to the other family pictures, up on the mantelpiece. Suddenly she starts talking about the neighborhood they just moved in to and that Elizabeth and Lena are receiving socks from nuns, which is a pretty good example of the concentration problem. This constantly subject changing through the story is also a good example of childish behavior. Elizabeth's parents are two important characters in the text. The mother, (or refered to as "Mammy") has a quite offensive and aggresive approach to Elizabeth and Lena. In the text there are no signs on goodness from her, and she never does anything good for her own children. Her reaction against Elizabeth and Lena are very aggresive and violent, since she doesn't have any problem physically punishing her children. The mother is very strict aswell espesialy when Elizabeth and Lena wants to play, she is very strict and decides which circumstances they are allowed to play under. Then we have the father. He is a total opposite to their mother, because he doesn't have those strict rules, and for example