Say we are all asleep. Do we want to wake up?

At first, the abrupt style of "Debriefing" disconcerted me, but as I was drawn deeper into the work, I came to love it. The short, emotionally charged phrases ("I want to save my soul, that timid wind.") countered by the vivid scenes were very powerful, even if their actual "meaning" was ambiguous. The various headings were helpful in providing an anchor to keep the reader grounded in what the work was trying to do, markers that made me pause and consider the text as a whole right when I was on the brink of getting lost in the midst of all the people and places. Yet I thought this congestion of words, particularly  the referencing of name after name after name, worked really well in creating a fast-paced, city-like atmosphere that was a bit overwhelming and easy to get lost in, reflecting the content of the story nicely. I think what I really took away from this story was how powerful it can be to allow interruptions in a narrative--although the reader might be thrown off in the moment, the work as a whole can be strengthened by the jarring effect it creates. "The Babysitter" was similar in this aspect; it also showed the value of contradictions in narrative, which was similarly confusing and disconcerting for the reader. Overall, rather than doing away with narrative altogether as some of the works we've studied this semester have, these two pieces offer ways of complicating narrative that can be used to challenge both the reader's thoughts and emotions.