Point of View

This story is written in first-person, from the perspective of a young girl. The first paragraph of the story is in present tense, because it involves the girl telling the reader that she is going to tell the reader a story about her day. The rest of the story is in past tense, because it is the girl’s recounting of the previous day’s events.

The shift from present tense in the first paragraph to past tense for the rest of the story adds authenticity to the narrator’s role and makes the conversational atmosphere of the story more convincing. This tense shift is comparable to a natural conversation, whereby one interlocutor would introduce a topic in present tense before talking about her experience with that topic in past tense. This makes the story appear to be more like a regular conversation.

Dahl uses...