Helen Garner My Hard Heart

Helen Garner, in her short story collection, My Hard Heart, uses a wide variety of different narrative perspectives. Each type of narration is closely linked with, and special to, the story or experience being told. Susan Hosking, describes Garners writing style as an ‘ability to refine subject matters that meaning emerges from accumulated detail rather than exhaustive explanation or description. ‘The life of Art’ is a story meant to tell of a life, of the length of a friendship and does so by appearing in disjointed little snippets of events that happen throughout that life, in first person and mostly beginning with “my friend.” ‘Postcards from Surfers’ uses a normal conversational type of narration, with the story told in first person again, immediately centering the tale around the main character speaking and illumination the struggles of the protagonist. Their view of the people around them is shown by the replies made to questions or the type of conversation made by surrounding characters. Different again, is ‘All Those Bloody Young Catholics.” Brilliant use of narration here immediately sets the scene for the story and tells the reader about its characters, the constant ramble of words.

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I was down the Yarra last week, dived in and hit a snag. The central character is always describing objects in great detail, like the sight she is presented with when she first arrives in Coolangatta. ”

This different again narrative technique outlines Garner’s range in her writing and her great ability to use a writing style relevant to the tale she is wishing to express, to give it more enthusiasm. The way that the man goes off track when he begins to answer questions gives the reader some fantastic surrounding detail without knowing that this is happening, it is natural. ”

The description of other characters is also very complex, especially the main character’s father, illustrating again how the narrative style backs up the story being told, in this case the relationship between father and daughter. The entire story is told through monologue. It is a complex relationship, as indeed are all the ‘ordinary’ relationships (mother/daughter, aunt/niece, sister/sister) in one sense vital and still evoking, in another timeless, unchanged, institutional. ” In ‘All those bloody young Catholics’ it is a constant rambling of words, an entire conversation written from one mans point of view.

“The road takes a sudden swing around a rocky outcrop, Miles ahead of us, blurred in the milky air, I see a dream city, its turquoise towers thrust in a cluster from a distant spit. ”

The superb use of monologue in this story outlines beautifully for the reader, the characters concerned within it. ”

The above shows how Helen Garner’s unique writing style and narration techniques are centrally related to the story being told, and also inform the reader of many important things about the story. This is shown by the fact that nearly every short paragraph in the story begins with ‘my friend…’ This further shows the variety of Helen Garner’s narrative style and how this is used to great effect in telling the reader more about the story being told. No other characters voices are heard throughout the entire monologue. The conversational style of the story shows the reality of this character’s life, and its relative normality, plodding along in the human condition,

“Look at those idiots” says my father

“The must be freezing” says my mother

“But what about the principle of the wetsuit?” I say

The narration style in ‘Postcards from Surfers,’ like many others of Helen Garner’s stories, is also very descriptive.

Approximate Word count = 1279
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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