The Best Stylistic Element Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats

One of the best stylistic elements in My Year of Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki is the use of different forms of media as a way of narrating the story. Ozeki’s use of faxes, memos, scripts and other forms of media allow the novel to feel more real and modern. The use of media as a form of narration acts as an indirect way of describing the characters. Instead of the narrator telling the reader about the different characters that are encountered from their point of view, the reader is allowed to make their own inferences about characters based on their actions as well as their vocabulary and tone that are present in their different forms of communication. The use of multiple forms of media also allows the reader to form a more complete character profile, that would be otherwise limited if the narration was restricted to just faxes or just memos. This form of narration also keeps the reader more on the surface rather than inside the heads of one of two major characters. This allows focus of the story to be shifted more easily from character to character. The stylistic use of the different forms of media as a form of narration provides a unique reading experience that is unmatched by traditional novels.