“The Gift” of a Pecha Kucha Presentation

Epistolary fiction is defined as “the works of fiction that are written in the form of letters or other documents”.

In class this week, we read a book of short stories (written as epistolary fiction) by Emma Donoghue. When given the option to choose between 3 stories, “Counting the Days”, “Onward”, and “The Gift”, I choose “The Gift”. In reading the summary, I was initially drawn to the inclusion of a mother/daughter relationship. In short, the letters recount the life of a daughter, who has been given up by her birth mother as an infant. It is described through conversations between the mother and the orphanage and conversations between the adoptive family and the orphanage. There are disagreements concerning the family the daughter is to live with, along with descriptions of each of the families financial and living situations as time moves forward, and as the daughter grows up. There were conflicting thoughts in my head as I read through this: Should the daughter return to her biological mother? Or is it best for her to stay with the only family she’s ever known? In the end, she never finds out that she is adopted and gets married to a man she loves very much. But I can’t help but think about how different her life would be if the orphanage had agreed to return her to her birth mother. In context to my own life, how would I feel if, in 20 years, my mother and father told me I was not their blood? I know I would have questions, but overall I would feel betrayed. If the story had continued, I wonder if they would’ve eventually told the daughter of her true genetics? How would she have reacted to the news?

PechaKucha is a storytelling format in which a presenter shows 15 slides for 20 seconds per slide.

After reading and analyzing the short story, we split into groups and were asked to create a “Pecha Kucha” presentation describing our story, as well as giving insight to our individual interpretations of the storyline. While I was not thrilled with the small amount of time given to create this presentation, I enjoyed the discussion it caused and the community it brought to the entire class. It was almost relieving to know everyone else in the room was feeling the same pressure to finish as we were. I think that helped with my confidence when it came time to actually present our work, as well as helped to relive some anxiety I have about speaking in front of people. Overall, I had a fun time working with my peers and I was happy to be able to practice presenting before our official WWII paper and presentations are due next week.