Monique Ahmad

Joseph Cooper

Intro. To CRWR

6 May 2014

Analysis of The Book Of Jon

I personally really enjoyed the way this book was written. Sikelianos continuously changes the form in which she writes to make the book more interesting. She vividly depicts the happenings in the narrator's life with emotion and imagery. The Book of Jon, is a compilation of memories from the narrator’s life, by Eleni Sikelianos uses various literary techniques such as, repetition, change in stanzas, conflict and a change in point of view.  

Through out the book, Sikelianos uses repetition to either add more emphasis on a subject or create rhyme. On page 9, Sikelianos explains why she would make a movie for her father, even though he was absent during the majority of her life. She repeatedly says the phrase “my father” to show the readers that it doesn’t matter whether her father was present or not, he is still her father. Later on in the book, whilst telling an anecdote, repeatedly uses the word “hon” (28).  Here Sikelianos does this to not only emphasis the waitresses personality, but also to create a rhythmic flow through the lines.

My favorite aspect of this book is that it changes its stanza form between each story or chapter. The first section is a letter, so it uses a paragraph form. The next section is a script for a movie. As the book progresses we travel through stanza poems, prose poems, lists, and various other forms. Sikelianos does this to create a collection of various objects that represent different stages of her family history.  I was very impressed by how she changes her style of writing for smoothly.

This entire book is a conflict. Sikelianos writes this book to show all the conflict that has taken place in her family. She traces her family in her as far she can to explain how she came to be. She starts off by stating all the problems that she had to endure in her early life. Than she talks about her family background and moves on to explain how that has caused a domino effect in her family.           

Sikelianos also changes the speakers point of view very often. By doing so she allows us to get the perspective of all the character. I thought this was a really interesting way to write a book. At times it confused, but I also really enjoyed it.