First-Person Nervousness in 'The Spelling Bee'
Mr. Patel's class reads a short story, 'The Spelling Bee,' narrated by Ana in first person. Ana waits backstage before the school bee. The story says: 'My hands were two ice cubes. The stage looked a mile wide. I heard every whisper in the gym. When Mrs. Chen called my name, my voice came out as a squeak.' Ana's friend Jonah tells her, 'You'll do fine,' and Ana thinks, 'Easy for him to say-he already spelled his word.' Later Ana remembers practicing with her mother for two weeks. Two students disagree: Ben says Ana is excited because she practiced; Cami says Ana is nervous because of her hands and voice. The teacher asks the class to use two pieces of evidence from the text, not just one, and to explain what the first-person point of view lets readers know that a third-person narrator might not.
1. Is Ana more excited or nervous? Choose a side and support it with two details from the setup. Explain why one detail alone could mislead a reader.
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Ana is more nervous than excited. Two details support nervousness: her hands feel like 'two ice cubes,' and her voice 'came out as a squeak' when Mrs. Chen called her name. A third detail-hearing 'every whisper in the gym'-shows her attention is fixed on the audience, which fits anxiety. The practice detail could mislead someone because practicing for two weeks might look like excitement. But practice shows preparation and caring; it does not show enjoyment. The physical details and the squeak are stronger because they show her body reacting under pressure. Using only the practice detail would ignore the scene's main feeling, so two details are needed.
2. What does the sentence 'My hands were two ice cubes' mean, and why might the author use a metaphor instead of writing 'My hands were cold'? Use the first-person point of view in your answer.
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The sentence is a metaphor: Ana's hands are not literally ice cubes. It means her hands felt extremely cold, probably from fear, and the comparison makes the feeling sharp and easy to imagine. If the author wrote 'My hands were cold,' readers would know only a temperature. The metaphor suggests stiffness, numbness, and panic. Because the story is in first person, readers get Ana's own sensation directly; we are inside her body at that moment. A third-person narrator could report 'Ana's hands were cold,' but that would describe her from outside and might not convey how frightened she feels.
3. Rewrite Ana's thought 'Easy for him to say-he already spelled his word' as a third-person sentence. What is lost or gained?
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A third-person version could be: 'Ana thought it was easy for Jonah to say that because he had already spelled his word.' The third-person sentence reports Ana's thought from outside. It loses her annoyed, informal voice-especially the dash and the short, sharp 'Easy for him to say.' It gains distance and sounds more like a narrator summarizing. The first-person version makes readers feel Ana's irritation directly, while the third-person version tells us about it.