In the prose passage from Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight, by Alexandra Fuller, the child narrator expresses the socioeconomic struggles and the effect it has on the family dynamic as they embark on a journey to making a living. This is done through developing the motif of uncertainty, increasing tension through characterization and showcasing the importance of the seasonal tradition of selling their crops.
The recurring motif of uncertainty is used to develop the idea the financial complications which places emphasis of an important aspect of the working class. For example, the narrator uses many hypothetical ‘if’ statements such as “if he agrees with the price we have been offered for each bale, he hesitates, fingers hovering briefly above the ticket, and then walks on, leaving the ticket intact.”, to indicate uncertainty later in the story. In addition, within one of the if statements, the narrator makes a counter statement after the ‘if’ statement, “If dad starts tearing tickets and his face becomes folded and deep, we feel ourselves become quiet and wishing-we-weren’t-here”, through the use of the conjunction “but”, when she states, “But if he is walking quickly over the line of tobacco…”, further…show more content… The narrator, identified to be a child, repeatedly uses hyphenated words such as “not-wanting-to-be-here.“ to not only mimic a child-like way of speaking but to draw attention to unsettling ideas related to the family dynamic that a child of her age would typically not know. This is significant as it connects the development of the child’s personality to the unsettling events that she experiences in the family’s battle to gain a financially stable future. The idea of the juxtaposition between how the author presents the desperate family and the rich buyers are presented to highlight the disparity in the tobacco
