Reading I NEED HELP ON MY HOMEWORK

In Hit Man directed by Richard Linklater, the protagonist, Gary, is a professional assassin who uses multiple identities to help needy people. It uses narrational strategies such as delayed revelation, repetition, gaps, and depth of knowledge to depict how Gary's ever-changing multiple identities trigger and connect the story. This article argues that these narrational techniques complement each other through multiple plot twists, suspense, and foreshadowing so that each event interacts to guide the viewer’s inference-making process, revealing Gary’s dual identity and constructing a layered storyline that drives the plot toward its climax. Comment by Paul Kim: great

The voiceover in the film plays a vital role in conveying the protagonist's inner thoughts and supplementing the storyline. In the beginning, when Gary is sitting at the table eating, the voiceover appears for the first time. The past tense is used when it says, “I liked my inner life. I was pretty happy.” this voiceover, spoken from Gary’s future perspective, breaks the fourth wall and connects the audience with Gary's inner thoughts. It leaves the audience wondering what Gary's life is like in the present and predicts that Gary and his life, as currently seen by the audience, will change, setting the stage for what comes next. This high self-consciousness enhances interactivity with the audience, and the first-person narration greatly enhances subjectivity. The voiceover controls what the audience knows about Gary's thoughts and intentions at each critical point. This narrational choice also encourages viewers to infer Gary’s motivations and subsequent moves. Comment by Paul Kim: True. Relation to story?

In addition to mental subjectivity, when the film narrates the incidents of Gary being a hitman, it is the objective depth of knowledge. The visuals and voiceover align to objectively introduce Gary’s career and clients, streamlining the narrative by omitting unnecessary scenes until the phrase “the oddest turns in my life” signals the unfolding of the critical storyline. One of these focused gaps is Gary's failure to turn Madison into the police. This completely different treatment from everyone else leads to the assumption of the subsequent storyline, that is, this deliberate “negligence” will have unexpected consequences, setting the conditions for the climax of the movie, Ray's death. The narration from a highly subjective perspective leads to a restricted range of knowledge because the audience can only learn about the things Gary saw and heard, and sometimes even less than the character's information threshold. The combination of subjective and objective narration enhances the audience’s connection to Gary’s inner thoughts. It creates suspense by limiting the flow of detailed information, which leads the audience to anticipate gaps and question what they don’t know rather than merely showing Gary’s psychological aspect. Comment by Paul Kim: Exactly!

Besides, the film uses a delayed narrative strategy to change the story's tone from a look at duality to tension and moral ambiguity. At the climax, when Gary fully adopts the mindset of a killer, the tone becomes urgent and irreversible. This shift highlights the consequences of his actions, shifts the story from contemplation to action, and forces the audience to face the fusion of his two identities in a final and unsettling way. The first delay occurred when Gary received Mike's secret mission. Neither the audience nor the protagonist knew Mike's identity. Later, when Ray's identity is revealed, it exposes and intensifies the conflict between Gary and Ray and foreshadows Gary's following action, that is, the warning to Madison to “beware of Ray,” which sets up Ray's death and Madison's suspicion of committing the crime. The film also creates suspense through narrative gaps. For example, two clips mention Madison's relationship with guns. The first is when she suddenly pulls out a gun at Gary to protect herself, and the second is when Gary takes Madison to a shooting range. There is a causal gap here. Madison's sudden mention of guns is not reasonable, and the answer is revealed when the audience learns the cause of Ray's death was a gunshot to the chest. This sets the stage for Madison to become a suspect, leading Gary into the incident and his subsequent breakdown.

The second delay occurs when Gary and Jasper learn from the police chief that Madison is the beneficiary of Ray's multimillion-dollar insurance policy. This provides the final evidence that Madison is an unshakable suspect, prompting Gary to have a final confrontation with Madison under the urging of his companions and driving the film to its climax. Not only that, but this information also sets the stage for Jasper's coveting of Madison's insurance money and threatening her. There is a spatial gap between the sequence, which first appears when Gary is on the way to arrest Madison in the car arranged by the police chief. The camera pans from right to left, and Jasper is seen sitting in the passenger seat. The second time this shot appears is at the end, as Gary rushes to Madison's house. The camera pans from right to left again, but no one is in the passenger seat. This spatial gap causes the audience to associate Jasper's position with his abduction, laying the groundwork for the confrontation in which Gary confronts Madison over her suspected involvement in Ray’s death and Jasper’s motives. It leads the story to a tense struggle and propels the narration toward its ultimate climax. Repeated delays drive subsequent events in the movie and serve as a strong hint.

The final delay occurs when Madison drugged the beer, causing Jasper to fall unconscious. This plot twist forces Gary to take decisive action, which is to kill Jasper and bury the body. This climactic act changes the narration trajectory and highlights the fusion of his two roles. It is worth noting that the mise-en-scène in this scene is reflected in the costume, with Madison wearing a bright red dress. Red signifies danger and emotional intensity and visually predominantly signals to the audience the approach of danger while representing the two people's warm and excited emotions as they finally work together to solve the problem. The red dress visually foreshadows the impending confrontation between Madison and Gary, reinforcing the scene's tension and shaping the audience's anticipation of the storyline's peak. Within the narrative, it creates a visual cue that prepares the audience for the impending climax, subtly guiding their expectations without explicit exposition. This visual element aligns with the film’s strategy of using delayed revelations and visual markers to signal transitions, building suspense as the story progresses from subtle suggestion to overt action. This mise-en-scène detail connects with the delayed revelations as a form of silent narration that conveys information through visual storytelling, shaping how the audience interprets the storyline.

After a build-up and progression of delays and gaps, repeating this strategy rearranges the scene of the “agreement” between Gary and Madison into structured narrative markers, highlighting the narration's core milestones and turning points. It recycles the clues in the storyline and completes the whole story. The “term” first appears after the two have had their first sexual relationship. The signing of this “agreement” marks Gary's initial anxiety, solidifies Gary's escape mentality, and sets the stage for his subsequent caution to clear his name. The second occurrence of the term comes after Gary chooses to kill Jasper. This repetition starkly contrasts the first “signing” and represents a narration twist that will surprise the audience. Thus, these repetitions track Gary’s development and deepen the audience’s understanding of his actions. By embedding these agreements as structural markers, the narration reinforces themes of identity and moral ambiguity, guiding viewers to interpret each encounter as a personal shift for Gary and a critical evolution in the storyline. Ultimately, the repetitions help bring the plot’s clues to a coherent and impactful resolution.

In conclusion, Hit Man constructs its storyline through narrational techniques such as mise-en-scène, restricted narration, delays, and gaps, allowing Gary’s evolving perspective to drive the unfolding of events. By limiting the audience’s knowledge to what Gary sees and experiences, the film creates suspense and encourages viewers to share the narration as new information is revealed actively. Each delay and visual contrast become a tool for structuring the plot, guiding viewers to interpret Gary’s dual identity as a narration mechanism rather than just a character trait. Through these strategies, Hit Man crafts a storyline that explores the blurred lines between perception and reality, leaving audiences questioning how identity shapes and controls a story.

Huge improvement, it is clear you re-focused this entire paper, well done. I think the structure is nice but could be a little better (your paragraphs could speak to each other better), but the flow is nice. Great job