Question

How does the author reveal personal voice of narrator in picture perfect by marie devers

Answer 1

"Picture Perfect" is a short story about a girl, the main character and narrator, who discovers that she is better suited to be the photographer for her school´s yearbook instead of being part of the promoting team. As she sits on the first meeting of the project, the narrator wonders about her abilities and finds that she is not well-prepared, unlike her classmates. In the end, she goes to her grandmother who advices her to rather think about becoming the photographer, shows her that she herself was the photographer at her school´s yearbook and then hands her grandchild a black camera. The narrator, after several attempts, finds out that in truth she has the spirit of a photographer and at the second yearbook meeting, she is no longer scared, or unsure of what she will offer, but shows off her talents and feels rather proud of herself.

The way to know that the writer is using personal voice, and that the narrator is actually the main character and the story is hers, is through the use of the personal pronoun "I", which grammatically is the main characteristic of the personal voice. Also, as you read, you can relate the story only to the narrator, as everything is lived and experienced through her eyes and no one else´s. You cannot gather any information outside of what the narrator is experiencing as the main character in the story.