"Manifest" Narrator

The short story “Manifest” is written from the unnamed protagonist’s second-person point of view. In the narrative present, this second person narrator is a 26-year-old young woman who is still undergoing her self-discovery journey. She lives with her parents, but often spends time at her friends’ homes to avoid her mother in particular. Her frustration with her home life begins after her mother starts to call her Agnes, the name of her late grandmother. The narrator never knew Agnes but she is terrified of her mother’s response to her when she thinks that she is Agnes. Her mother behaves in often angry and hostile ways towards the narrator, as if Agnes is a wicked person who she is afraid will hurt her. To avoid her mother’s violence, the narrator decides to stay with her friend Leslie “until [her] mother stops seeing her mother in...