Assignment #2

Author's Note: This is the assignment about how the point of view of our book is important. I thought the point of view was really important because the main character had no clue what was happening. 

The point of view in Milkweed is extremely important. It is told from the point of the orphan kid, who's age is not know, but has no clue what is going on. When the Nazis come, he likes them because if their big, shiny, black boots. Some times he describes events vividly and they turn out to be the least important. Then he'll sum a large event in a page or two, like when he was on the farm, he talked about it for a couple pages. It turns out he was on the farm for three years. Disturbing images are described by him so blandly, like how dead bodies of Jews littered the streets, he seems completely unaffected by it. There is one event that comes to mind that I didn't understand at all. Misha finds his friend and the leader of the band of boys, Uri, in a hotel for the Nazi soldiers working as a busboy. At the end, he shoots off Misha's ear. I think this was so they thought he was dead and wouldn't put him on the train to the concentration camp, but the reader is never sure. Both these events are examples of what I am trying to say. He just doesn't notice what is going on around him, and can't describe the things he does understand. This changes how the story is viewed.

The story would completely different if it was told from a different perspective or third person. If it were told through the eyes of an adult, the reader would have a different take on the story. It would be so much about a kid not knowing that he is in a desperate fight for survival, and into just another historical fiction novel about the holocaust. If it were told from third person but still followed Misha, it would also be different. The reader would get more details and have a solid view of what is happening. With Misha's poor descriptions, the reader never has a concrete idea of what is happening.