Original Prompt, Week 5

In a section of "Mary and Wilbur," Thomas Lynch writes about how he and his wife take walks in their town. "She sees the architectural detail of Greek Revival homes, Queen Anne's, Federalist, and Victoriana. I [Lynch] see the garage where two teachers, long married and childless, known for their prowess at ballroom dancing, and careful fashions, were found asphyxiated in their Oldsmobile." The pair of Lynch and his wife look on the same scenes, but where she "sees a well-made garden, bordering the backyard of a house," he remembers "painting a bedroom overnight in which a man had shot himself so that his children, grown now, wouldn't have to return to the mess he'd made." This passage brought to mind the nuanced differences of perspective. Depending upon who is an author's speaker, and even that speaker's changing moods, different scenes and details take on vastly different connotations and relevancies to a given piece. In creative non-fiction, this perspective is a very important for it often is the source of the reflection we've been needing to cultivate in our own writing. Here, however, Lynch gives us two perspectives, vastly different, and in that difference is a subtle reflective commentary on the essay's subject. Prompt: Write about a scene, experience, etc. in which two characters, one being the speaker, have opposite perspectives. It would probably be best if the perspectives are not directly opposing, or at least that the characters emotions connected to the perspectives are not high emotions, so that the characters do not enter into an argument, but are simply noticing different details and remembering different events. Focus not on the interiority of the individuals, but more on the nuanced physical details of the scene/experience they are noting. Then, compose an accompanying reflective passage in which the speaker comments upon the relevance of the different perspectives through his/her own perspective.