Topic > A critique in response to readers on How I Learned to Drive

How I Learned to Drive is the story of Li'l Bit's teenage life. Seventeen-year-old Li'l Bit serves as the narrator of the story, following her life between the ages of 11 and 17. The story primarily revolves around Li'l Bit and Uncle Peck, the man who harasses and sexualizes Li'l Bit throughout the story. The story turns the story itself into a story as a result of the narrative and dissociative structure. Li'l Bit's life, and even her description of events close to her in the present, is structured like a play, and her running commentary is full of humor, satire, etc. (as if she were a comedian making a joke in bad taste). This way of narrating implies that Li'l Bit has an attitude of dissociation, or a detachment from the events he describes to the audience. The act of molestation is itself dramatized in such a way that it takes on the appearance of fantasy, losing its moral weight with reality, and the molester, Uncle Peck, is a character not only of great irony but also of great ambiguity. He is never condemned for his actions; rather he is sympathized with and is involuntarily supported by his family. To truly understand how I learned to drive, it is not necessary to look for answers in the text itself, since metastory and history are both different fictions (which hinders the use of critical psychological, social, and formalist approaches) and one cannot look at an underlying moral message, as the entire text is pervaded by moral ambiguity. It is in the act of interpreting our response that we can understand How I learned to drive. As I learned to drive it gave me a sense of religious optimism, amusement, anger and bewilderment. While reading How I Learned to Drive, I was surprised by... half of the paper... comes from the moral ambiguity and structural discontinuity of the work, which makes me uncomfortable, since I prefer rigid structures and moral conflicts recognizable in the texts. Overall, I liked How I Learned to Drive and it touches on some big themes of everyday life (how moral issues aren't always black and white and how not everyone's life turns out perfect), but there were a few things in the play that they hurt me. appreciation for it.Works CitedRomans. Standard English version. Np: CrossWay Bibles, 2001. BibleGateway. Network. April 24, 2014.Vogel, Paula. How I learned to drive. Norton's introduction to literature. Ed. SpencerRichardson-Jones. 11th ed. New York: Norton., 2013. 2227-2267. Print.Žižek, Slavoj. “Liberation Hurts: Interview with Slavoj Žižek.” Interview by Eric D. Rassmusen. E-book review. Np, July 1, 2004. Web. April 23. 2014.