The life of a teenager, no matter how angsty or stressful it may seem, is always fun to watch from a third person's eye as it is full of drama and is something a reader can identify with and empathize with. In the case of Wells Tower's "Leopard", the story explores the life of a young Yancy. While it is a well-executed story, it fails to tell the story cohesively in the eyes of protagonist Yancy and winds down to the author (Tower) telling the story with the psychological maturity of an adult. In this story of a teenager going through nature's harsh puberty, the writer shows us the psychological warfare going on in the mind of an eleven-year-old, who is surprisingly discovering what is right and wrong, with the psychological maturity of an adult. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay As complicated as it may seem, second-person narration is an interesting way to look at a short story. It was strange to find a story with a second-person narration, since such a form of narration is almost rare in literature. Mainly the narrative style was a breath of fresh air due to its rarity and its added depth to the story. It's normal for an 11-year-old to talk to himself so much, especially while plotting a lie. But the use of such a storytelling style makes you wonder how deeply the author is invested in his story. In this case, it was evident that Yancy and Towers shared a certain level of similarity not only at the level of thinking, but also because they shared a unique lens of viewing the world. In the life of a teenager, no matter how distressing or stressful it may seem, it is always fun to watch it from a third person's eye as it is full of drama and is something a reader can identify with and empathize with. In the case of Wells Tower's "Leopard", the story explores the life of a young Yancy. While it is a well-executed story, it fails to tell the story cohesively in the eyes of protagonist Yancy and winds down to the author (Tower) telling the story with the psychological maturity of an adult. In this story of a teenager going through nature's harsh puberty, the writer shows us the psychological warfare going on in the mind of an eleven-year-old, who is surprisingly discovering what is right and wrong, with the psychological maturity of an adult. The only thing evident in this story is that the author, on many occasions, broke character. When an author writes a story, it is important that he or she sees the world through the lens of his or her fictional/non-fictional character. In "Leopard" Tower in many cases failed to stick to the goal of Yancy, an 11 year old and used his lens as an adult writer, which is evident through the vocabulary used in the story. It makes readers suspicious that an eleven-year-old is capable of using sophisticated vocabulary like “hopelessly” not once but twice correctly. Another suspicious point in the story was how an 11-year-old knew the name of that thing that separated the nostrils. During puberty or adolescence, it is normal for an 11-year-old to doubt himself, try to place one above his parents, and perhaps even develop some psychological sophistication due to factors such as having a divorced parent or even having an adoptive parent easily disliked. But in this tale, Towers has clearly taken this leniency of being a teenager too far. A prime example will be the case of the deceased young Samantha Measly, whose body was tragically found near a maple tree, not only murdered but also raped. Aexciting girl who led an adventurous life and young Yancy thought "at least she didn't die a virgin". As cruel as it sounds, it added some much-needed contrast to the story, but it was largely due to the fact that Yancy was eleven. While perverted thoughts are common in the mind of a teenager, that wouldn't be the case for Yancy. It wasn't the thought that made Yancy seem to have the mental stability of an adult, it was the fact that through the sudden rush of the thought the child was able to understand that it was a bad thought and it was that control that made that the child seems too young for his mental stability. In this story, one might believe that the character has been given too much psychological maturity for his age. As the protagonist of this story, Yancy is a difficult character to root for due to his cunning personality. Regardless of Yancy being brash and scheming, the only factor that keeps audiences loyal to the character is mostly the lack of affection shown by his biological mom and the strict nature of his stepfather. Otherwise, the reader is expected to root for the character because of the good guy plot armor placed on Yancy by Tower. In a way, Yancy can also be considered his own antagonist due to his back and forth arguments or confrontational nature. Even though his stepfather should be considered the main antagonist, it is difficult to do so since, if you look through the stepfather's lens, you can see that everything is done for the good of the children. The stepfather's nature or way of implementing things might have been a little reckless, but nothing was sinister. But as readers we have to look at the story through Yancy's eyes and his point of view makes the stepfather seem sinister even though most of the stepfather's actions were the consequence of Yancy's actions. Structured as a short story, the story is well complemented by the second-person narrative as it adds a much-needed sense of freshness through the use of the typical story template of a teenager in crisis. The story had a structure similar to a well-executed screenplay but more comprehensible to the common mind thanks to the second-person narration. The story was well told and had a good balance between past and present. The addition of metaphor like the Leopard was excellent since the Leopard can be interpreted as Yancy. The spots may represent the black spots in Yancy's young life that represent his scheming and lying nature. The overall tone or atmosphere of the story cannot be expected to be a typical happy story due to the troubled nature of the boy, accompanied by the loveless environment in which the child finds himself. It can be assumed that the audience for this story may be a group of young adults. and to some extent people in their 25s and 30s due to the implementation of real world concepts such as murder, rape and so on. Audiences may vary due to the fact that anyone over the age of 18 can empathize with a teenager due to the physical and psychological tensions involved. While it was a lot of fun to see a teenager's plans, one might believe it to be a little far-fetched due to the layers upon layers of thought behind a simple lie. The child planning to fall and shift the blame to his stepfather, inflated by this huge case of planning a fake accident and fearing the unforeseeable consequences, seems far-fetched for an 11-year-old to think about. Ultimately, the core of the story was about a teenager trying to gain the sympathy or affection of a loved one by any means necessary to cope with changes.