In Jeanette Winterson’s “The Green Man,” it is at first unclear who is telling the story. For the first page, the author writes in a poetic way that makes it seem as if it is from the perspective of the daughter.
These round bellied glint-eyed horses are Trojan horses. Truant, feckless, anarchic, unsaddled and munching to bare earth the ordered weekends of Daddy’s life; the lawn.”
On the next page, we learn that the father is telling the story and it is not the daughter.
My daughter came back from school and said ‘Daddy, in the Olden Days the Queen married the King and after a year she killed him.’ I said ‘I know sweetheart .'”
Throughout the whole story, the father continues to speak in tongues, and events seem to pass strangely. We get more into the Dad’s head and learn that while he loves his family he doesn’t want to stay with them and feels trapped. He has strange encounters with the people at the fair and the story ends with him buying his daughter a horse that was brought to their house.