The Girl Who Was Plugged In

From the first lines of the story, we’re introduced to a strong and distinctive narrative voice. Throughout, this voice intervenes directly in the narrative to comment on the action, raise questions, and give asides that describe aspects of the future world. The voice is full of personality, with unusual diction and a punchy, sardonic style.

This voice is consciously aware of itself as telling a story from some point in the future to an audience of people in our present (its past). This comes across forcefully in the opening lines with the address to an implied audience of “zombies” and “dead daddies”—a male audience, obsessed with its wealth and status, and one located in the past. The narrator seems keen to educate or shock this audience in some way. She wants Burke’s story to disrupt their world view. In the conclusion, there’s an ironic concession to the limitations of this disruption, as the narrator reassures her audience there’s plenty of opportunity for “capital appreciation” (78) in the future.

At key points, the narrator steps back and lets the action unfold more directly, but her presence is never too far away.