“Baglady” analyze

The short story “Baglady” by A. S. Byatt from the collection “Elementals” (1998) I want to tell about what language there are used, what type of text it is, and how the end effects you.

It is written with third person limited view, as you only hear the thoughts and feeling from one person, and that is Daphne who is the protagonist in this story. You hear about one event in “Baglady”. The business trip with Daphne’s husband Rollo, his colleagues and their wives. This means that the story is written with scenic presentation. The language in “Baglady” is easy to read, not many difficult words are used. It is not a very emotional text, you don’t hear about a lot of feelings, it mostly describes the surroundings instead. You don’t really hear a lot of speech between the different characters. There are a few conversations mentioned between Daphne and her husband Rollo. And in those conversations they talk about the fact that Daphne doesn’t want to go on the trip, but Rollo insists that she goes with him.

“Baglady” doesn’t extend over a period of time. It is told in the moment as Daphne experiencing them. There are a few flashbacks which appear as conversations between Daphne and Rollo. This gives you the feeling that you’re in the moment with her.

The story starts in media res, with one of the other wives explaining something to everybody else, so you don’t know what had happened before. In this case you figure out a little bit about what had happened before in the conversations, in flashback, between Daphne and Rollo.

Even though you don’t get told in the story what year we are in, it’s probably in the 20th century and the postmodern time. You hear about Aids, which was one of the diseases in the postmodern time. Another thing that might get you to think that the story is written in postmodern time is because of its black humor,