I’m thinking of 2nd-person fiction, and I’m wonder how the authors justified their use of 2nd person . . . the reason why the narrative exists in this form. For example, I can see telling an amnesia patient about his life, or relating the story to an actor about to take on a new role. Or “humanizing” an android by relating human experiences. Or narrating a reincarnated person about a previous life. What other reasons may exist for a story to be told in 2nd person?
Most ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ type books use it. I don’t recall seeing it anywhere else.
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney is the only example I can think of.
I loathe it. Far too many net.erotica writers use it, though I suspect they are just repurposing something they wrote as part of some failed seduction plot.
You know how it is. You’re talking to someone about something that happened, and you maybe don’t want to internalise it by saying “I” and “me”, or else it’s just this conversational tic you’ve got. So you tell them how you went all the way down to the store for an anchovy pizza, and you found they were all out, and it really makes you mad when that happens, and before you know it you’ve related the whole narrative that way.
Then you look up Girl with Green Eyes by Edna O’Brien and you find out the whole book’s written that way, and it’s just a childhood/young adult story and no-one’s a mental patient, and while the things “you” did in the story include avoiding mentioning your autoerotic habits with your favourite raggy doll when you go to confession, or when you’re a bit older the story of how the young priest tried to get you to have sex with him, you’re not writing an erotic story as such because you have a lot in the book that’s just about an Irish childhood and isn’t sexual at all.
It’s often used as a tool to encourage reader identification. All this stuff isn’t just happening to me, or him - it’s happening to you.
Isn’t that the one that has the twist ending, where it turns out you did it?
The Tell-Tale Heart is the most famous example I can think of
not sure why it is used. I guess maybe the narrator is trying to justify his actions to the reader assuage his guilt?
maybe we can get a Poe scholar to weigh in
It provides a plot twist or lets the reader see how the author views himself / herself.
There is a short story I quite enjoyed in a collection of Jackk the ripper themed stories. The story is about how you find a knife and descend into madness and/or are possessed by the ripper’s spirit. The second person helps drive home the loss of control the character experiences. One of my favorite short stories.
I don’t think so.
“The Tell-Tale Heart” is in first-person, not second.
Your point about guilt might bear some examination, however. Perhaps a form of projection could be invoked by a second-person narrative. The narrator might speak in the second person in an effort to displace feelings of guilt over the actions described, trying to paint the audience as complicit, or even accomplices.
I don’t recall reading such a story, but it seems like a plausible device. I think Malacandra’s demonstration of the approach would work with it, and his comment about not wanting to internalize the narrative certainly fits.
I’ve been doing this quite a bit lately, writing character studies for roles people are going to take in an upcoming game. The tricky part is managing the tone and the style; the style needs to remain consistent from piece to piece, while the tone needs to be tailored to the character. When you’re moving from a corrupt cop to a pixie on a peppermint bender, it can be quite a challenge.
The main narrative is in first person but there are plenty of second person allusions to the reader
I can see over a dozen. Much more than regular first-person stories
https://www.poemuseum.org/works-telltale.php
Yeah I guess I wouldn’t strictly call it a second-person story but it’s the closest thing I can think of besides some novelty like CYOA
If I remember correctly, A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears by Jules Feiffer is told in second person. I’ve used it for a read-aloud for students of all ages, and highly recommend it to anyone. It’s a very interactive tale, and just very charming. Give it a shot!
Bob Leman made great use of it in his story story “Instructions,” in the September '84 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It was just what the title says: “You will now go here and do this.” Excellent story.
I was just thinking of this recently, and IIRC:
Tom Robbins - Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
The IRON FIST comic did this in the '70s, maybe because there’s so much exposition in general – and backstory in particular – for the sidekick-less one to deliver: as with a certain TV show, the gimmick was that this humble student of kung-fu would solve the problem du jour by recalling a key lesson from his training back at the monastery.
So who the heck else is he going to detachedly narrate his flashbacks to, if not himself?
This book uses the second person plural, to represent a coupla dozen people in a failing Chicago ad agency in the latest recession. It’s not a bad book, but not a great one, either: http://www.amazon.com/Then-We-Came-End-Novel/dp/031601639X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406835340&sr=1-1&keywords=and+then+we+came+to+the+end
No, from the preview it uses the **First **person plural, i.e. we, our.
The second person is you, your.
In picture books it can be used when a parent is talking to a child.