Diane Schoemperlen's 'Red Plaid Shirt'

In the short story, “Red Plaid Shirt”, the narrator dictates not to a regular character but to the reader directly, the story is told in the second person and the reader is the main character. As the main character, you go through ups, down, and many hardships. Diane Schoemperlen didn’t decide to write this story in the second person for no reason, but to emotionally connect the reader to the events of the story. However, this is not the only way she emotionally connects the reader to the story. In “Red Plaid Shirt”, Diane Schoemperlen writes the story following a total of three rules in order to maintain an emotional connection with the reader throughout the story. Firstly, there are many points in the story where the reader would expect background information, and it is not present, this would slow the pace of the story and describe someone who is definitely not you in the moment you are reading. Next, whenever Schoemperlen refers to the future or the characters goals, she is often very vague. Again, this would describe the life

The story rarely stops to give you information on what is going on and the information it gives you is always very specific and in passing, this is done to focus the writing on more emotional things like memories. Right from the beginning “Red Plaid Shirt” places the reader right into the story with very little to go on, the title itself contains the first three words of the story and it just takes off from there. Your actions and appearance are only described very briefly, all you know of your appearance is from one sentence where you are told “Itchy but flattering against your pale skin, your black hair” (Schoemperlen 145), and this case it is in context of the red plaid shirt and tells you very little of the personality of the character. Later on, it briefly tells you this