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Land of the Lost

In: English and Literature

Submitted By amaliekastbjerg
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Pages 4
Land of the lost by Steward O’ Nan
B
Steward O’ Nan has written the short story “Land of the lost” with a third-person limited narrator. The story is written in a third-person limited narrator because it can make the reader feel closer to the main character because only one persons’ thought and feelings are shared, thus allowing the chance to build a bund between the reader and the character. An example from the text where it can been seen that it is a third-person limited narrator stands on page 8 l. 11-12; “She didn’t tell anyone what she was doing- she wasn’t stupid. The first time was the hardest because she felt foolish.” In those lines, we are able to know how the main character is feeling and what she is thinking. Through the whole story we follow her closely. It has that effect on the reader that a jump into the character’s head shows her thought process but leave some distance between what is happening on the outside and what the main character is thinking. That distance is very important for the reader. The story is about a single character that is middle-aged and divorced. She works as a cashier and lives alone with her dog, named Ollie.
The main character is a middle-aged woman living alone with her dog Ollie, because her grown boys have just moved out. She is a cashier at a BI-LO in Perry. At work, she isn’t alone, she has co-workers to talk with but at home, she has nobody beside her dog. One day she gets interested in a local case where a girl has been murdered and buried not far from her house. In the beginning, it is just a strong feeling of motherly love toward a child and sympathy for the grieving mother. However, the case means so much to her, so she starts to search after the dead girl. She does that because she lives alone, and no one else needs her, except Ollie, it stands in the text, (P. 9.l. 61-62) “She could admit that at least part of

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