Question

Who is Jo? How does she respond to her father’s story telling?

Answer 1

Jo or Joanne was the four-year-old daughter of Jack and Clare. She was accustomed to hearing stories from her father every evening and on Saturday afternoons, for the past two years. With each passing day, sleep had started eluding her during these story sessions, and her mind and body stayed wide-awake, engrossed in the world of fantasy and adventure.

She was an intelligent and inquisitive child. Her mind was bubbling with queries regarding whatever she heard or saw. Her responses to the stories were a curious mixture of emotions caught in recognition of the known and eagerness to explore the unknown aspects woven in the basic tale by her father. An impatient Jo wanted the story to move with a fast pace and yet cannot proceed with conflicting ideas or unresolved queries in her mind. She was also a very observant listener and corrected her father wherever she felt he faltered. The intensity of her engagement with the story was apparent from her body language and facial expressions. She empathized with the protagonist and rejected whatever did not fit in her own narrow world. The eagerness to understand and the restlessness to assert her point of view kept her awake. She was even willing to fight with her father and to coax him to end the story according to her standpoint. Her responses indicate that she had started developing a personality of her own.