A Well-Told Story: Seeing an Event From Different Perspectives

E-Page 9
 Analyze 
Use the basic features.

Remembered events are told through the participant’s perspective. For instance, the audio account of Juliane Koepcke’s survival presents mainly her point of view, although we hear the interviewer’s questions and comments. Sometimes, however, a remembered event is told to a third party, who writes about it, providing background information and including his or her own perspective on the event as in the article here.

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ANALYZE & WRITE

Write one or two paragraphs comparing the two versions of Juliane Koepcke’s story—the one you heard in the interview with Koepcke and the one you read in Williams’s article:

  1. Compare the description of the crash in the recorded interview (sec. 2:14–5:23) with the description in Williams’s article of the same events (pars. 1–3 and 18–20). How does Koepcke’s first-person description of the event compare with Williams’s description? What additional information does Williams provide that Koepcke does not? How does this additional information affect your reaction to the story?
  2. Now consider the description Williams provides of Koepcke’s attempt to find help (pars. 21–23) and compare that with Koepcke’s own description of those events (sec. 14:23–18:36 of the recorded interview). How do the details that Koepcke provides in the interview differ with the details that Williams provides in her article? Which are more powerful and why?
  3. Review paragraphs 8–10 and 25–31 of the article, in which Williams includes information about Koepcke today and her experiences after she returned to Germany. How does learning about Koepcke’s life today and her experience after finding letters from her father affect you as a reader? How does Koepcke’s current perspective affect your understanding of the event?

    Question