I was struck over and over again through reading Keene’s “Gloss” by his choice to make Carmel mute. I thought it paralleled the point in Hartmann’s essay well, because Carmel is literally silenced, in addition to be silenced in history because her story was not recorded. I also thought it made Keene’s task of narrating Carmel’s story a much more complex endeavor. There were two moments in which Keene departed from traditional narrative style to really express Carmel that particularly struck me.

The first begins on p. 124 when Keene pens Carmel’s diary entries. There are many, little details like abbreviations and words crossed out that give us a sense of her. For me, the overwhelming effect was that it felt like I could hear her voice, which is strange, because at this point in the narrative, she is doesn’t speak. The word that she writes as “Ayiti” really struck me. I remember being taught to say Haïti the proper way in French class as “ah-iy-ti”, and how different it felt to the pronunciation “hay-ti.” I liked how the syllables were much more lyrical. I think the phoneticism that I learned is a little different to the one that Keene gives to Carmel, but for some reason, after reading just that word in the way that Carmel writes it, I had a much stronger sense of Carmel’s inner voice, almost in an audible way.

The second moment was on p.132 when the narrative switches to Carmel in the “I” perspective. The shift was almost subtle, because it occurs after the prose switches back from eh diary entries to the traditional form. I was distracted by the change in form, and it took me a moment to fully absorb the shift to first person. It was incredibly powerful, however, because it opened up whole new worlds inside the character of Carmel. Through the diary entries, we get her “processed” thoughts, but I thought the first-person narration was interesting because it allowed for more of an internal monologue about what she was experiencing. Again, I think that choice in narration, which is emphasized by the shift, is poignant. Keene is writing about a mute character who is also completely silenced in history – I still grapple a little with how I feel about a man in 2015 imagining the thoughts and experiences of a person in her position, but I think he techniques he uses to craft her inner voice create a powerful sense of Carmel.