Literary Analysis The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a...

A narrative is constructed to elicit a particular response from its audience. In the form of a written story, authors use specific narrative strategies to position the ‘ideal reader’ to attain the intended understanding of the meanings in the text. Oliver Sacks’ short story The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is an unusual short story because it does not display conventional plot development; the story does not contain conflict or resolution of conflict. The genre of the story is also difficult to define because it reads as an autobiographical account of an experience Sacks had with a patient while working as a neurologist. Although it is arguable that the narrative is a work of non-fiction, it is nevertheless a representation, distinct†¦show more content†¦The intended meaning of narratives is always constructed, regardless of the closeness of the relationship between the real events and the representation. â€Å"There is no such thing as just a stor y. A story is always charged with meaning; otherwise it is not a story, merely a sequence of events.† (Fulford) The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is based on a real experience Oliver Sacks had while working as a neurologist. Although the narrative is ostensibly an honest retelling of Sacks’ medical encounter with a patient, the narrative is a construction, a representation of the real events, not the actual events themselves. Brian Moon refers to representations as â€Å"†¦versions of reality that different cultures construct and which people work within.† (Moon) It is important to separate the events in reality from the representation of the events that is the short story. Analysing the elements and conventions of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat makes it more obvious that the story is indeed a construction, that elements have been chosen and omitted to create meaning: â€Å"... texts offer a selection which conforms to certain limited beliefs a nd values.† (Moon) The selections in the text are also organised into a plot. The plot is â€Å"... a set of events structured to achieve an effect.† (Moon) As The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat selects and organises material from Sacks’ perspective, the text is to some degree fictional and positions the reader in relation to the