Right off the bat Claudia Rankine throws her readers into a confusing passage in her novel, Citizen. As readers, it is very rare when a novel begins in second person. This automatically threw me off, at least. At first, I was very confused; I didn't understand why Rankine would decide to write her novel in an unconventional second person point of view. Yet, as I continued to read, the usage of "you" became more familiar to me. It shifted from being confusing to being in the moment of these short passages in Part I.
Rankine's use of the second person is by no means strange, just unconventional -- but that is what makes this novel so interesting and drawing. Rankine actually explained why she wanted to write some portions of Citizen in the second person -- it was because she sought to filter her personal experiences through the eyes of her readers. She wanted it to be not only personal to her, but to her readers as well.
While seemingly nonconformist, the second person evokes feelings of passion such as anger and frustration. It's easy to read experiences that happened to others, but it is difficult to read experiences that happened to you. A simple usage of the second person perspective can change an entire feeling a reader has in such a powerful novel like Citizen. That is the power of "you".
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