Ella Minnow Pea Analysis

Ella Minnow Pea Summer Mini Essays

1. In Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea he uses an epistolary format in order to more prominently display the totalitarian rules of the Nollop High Council as well as sequence the plot points of his novel and utilize dates to their importance. He utilizes this writing style in order to convey multiple points of view with easier transitioning through many letters. At the same time the epistolary form also creates a completely different presentation of dialogue and character interactions that can be beneficial to reading and analysis of characterization and plot progression.

The most probable cause of using epistolary format in this book is to clearly show the various stages of lipograms as the story progresses

and the letters dwindle. It would have been much more difficult for a writer to capture the choppy speech the characters would be forced to use in order to avoid the progressively banned letters. Through one of Ella’s first letters it is established that even with the very first law put in place people are finding difficulty in speech. Ella informs about her mother’s struggle saying, “Mother spent much of the school day in halt and stammer lest she speak the proscribed letter and find herself brought up on charges…having to spell each word in her head before speaking it” (Dunn 17). We can conclude from this that, should Dunn have composed his work in a standard narrative form (in that of a first or third person point of view), it would have been very challenging to read and comprehend and it was just as effective to explain the struggles of individual characters in the context of a letter.
The purpose of the letter format in terms of improving characterization is very effective in the context of the story. It reveals very clearly each characters motivations and opinions of the new laws and events throughout the novel. For example, Ella comes off as very precautious and timid towards the new laws and open-minded to the laws as the will of Nollop. The epistolary format allows the reader to more quickly establish these features of the characters because it is not fast paced dialogue that the characters would merely prose on a whim, but rather carefully thought-out letters that refine and distinguish their individual opinions and ideas.
There were many purposeful reasons as to using the epistolary format in this novel. It created stronger characters and made more clear connections for reading and analysis of the story.