Narrative Devices in 'All About Eve' Anonymous 12th Grade

Director Joseph Mankiewicz’s All About Eve utilizes a circular narrative to conceal the truth of Eve’s story. However, the impact that Eve’s story ultimately has on Margo is more important than Eve’s story itself. This is because fabricated nature of Eve’s story allows for it to be easily rewritten by other “carbon copies” like Phoebe, therefore rendering it worthless.

There lies great irony in Mankiewicz’s title for the film, "All About Eve”, as the story of Eve is never told by Eve herself, but rather through the narration of all those she has betrayed. Consequently, on a broader scale, the film is an exploration of the nature and effect of one’s duplicity. Through introducing the key characters of the narrative in the Sarah Siddon’s Dining Hall, and then utilizing a flashback to follow their retrospective trajectory, Mankiewicz makes the betrayal that Karen and Margo feel, as a result of Eve’s beguiled manipulation, palpable to the audience. Therefore, Eve is introduced to the audience just as Karen was - in the shadows of a doorway, shrouded by darkness. That such darkness is an allusion to Eve’s deceitful nature is unnoticed by the film’s viewers, but rather, highlights the seeming impecuniosity of Eve. As such, the...