May Sinclair and Two Sides of Sacrifice

This chapter analyses the narration in relation to sacrifice in two experimental works by May Sinclair: Mary Olivier: A Life (1919) and Life and Death of Harriett Frean (1922). The frequent second-person narration in Mary Olivier creates a very intimate relationship between reader and protagonist, whereas Harriet Frean contains very little of this narrative mode and is primarily told in the third person. Harriet is almost constantly distanced from the narrative voice, by which method Sinclair shows that the protagonist has not developed an independent self. The narration of Mary Olivier is, on the other hand, intersubjective, as the narrative voice is almost constantly to be perceived as Mary’s own, even in passages narrated in the third person.