🌹The Rose & Skull ☠️
A Tricky Narrative
Narrators & Puppets
The following chart uses Wayang figures and regressive puppetry to suggest the narrative and political layers in the novel. The puppet gets pulled by a string, a stick yanks the string, a hand holds the stick, another string pulls the hand, another stick yanks the string, etc.
In both QA and YD we see events from the point of view of journalists who are part of the economic and military system of the West. In QA the point of view is first person, so we see things closely from Fowler’s point of view -- which appears to be very similar to Greene's point of view. In YD Cookie is writing the account, although much of what he writes is what happens to Hamilton and is what he imagines Hamilton to be thinking and feeling. The relation between Cookie and Koch is neither as close nor as clear as the relation between Fowler and Greene.