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Being the author!
The woman's viewpoint: our version and commentary:
I was sitting in the armchair by the fire, stroking Tiddles, when
the door burst open and a man came flying in. I jumped up, terrified,
and poor Tiddles shot out through the door. To defend myself I grabbed
the butter knife from my tea tray, but my arm seemed to explode and
I found myself lying on the floor, covered in blood and in terrible
pain. The swine had shot me!
1st- person reference is consistently used in relation to the woman,
and the past tense relates to her past time. The policeman gets 3rd-person
reference. Because the woman is inside the room and the door is closed,
the material about the policeman on the other side of the door has to
be omitted.
In S1, she will know the cat, and so we have given it a name, 'Tiddles'.
'The door' is subject to 'burst' as, from her viewpoint it will seem as
if the door opens itself. She cannot yet know what it is that is acting
on the door. Similarly, the reference is to a man, not 'a policeman' or
'the policeman' as he is new for her and she cannot yet know his identity.
The deictic verb 'came' codes the policeman's movement in terms of her
position (movement towards the addresser). 'Flying' represents his movement
as it could well have appeared from her viewpoint. The adjectives 'terrified'
and 'poor' in S2 indicate her emotional stance, and 'out' codes the movement
of the cat in relation to her spatial viewpoint.
In S3, 'to defend myself' is an indication of internal motivation consistent
with representing the woman's viewpoint, as is the use of the non-factive
'seemed' and the explosion metaphor in 'my arm seemed to explode'. The
sequence of information in S3 and S4 also indicates her viewpoint. She
feels the pain before she realises (a) that she has been shot and (b)
who must have shot her. Similarly, the omission of an explicit explanation
of how it is that she ends up on the floor suggests the sudden painful
and disorienting nature of her experience. The exclamation at the end
of S4 indicates her emotional state, and her use of 'the swine' to refer
to the policeman indicates her ideological stance in relation to him.
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