In the short story, Louise Banks, a linguist, figures out an alien (heptapods) writing language and now can see the future
The story is told through first person POV and is interspersed with past/future scenes
The way the story is told matches the description of heptapod language/perception
The person whose life is being told is Louise’s unborn daughter
We learn about her growing up and of her eventual death at age 25
On reread, the first dialogue Louise says to her daughter while ironic, could be a reference to future sight
The story covers the daughter’s day of conception and death within the first few pages: again, the simultaneous perception of her life
Heptapods see time as simultaneous rather than sequential >> their writing system reflects that >> people who learn the language also begin to see reality in this simultaneous perspective
Heptapods’ physiology reflects this: since they have eyes/legs on all sides, they don’t have a sense of forward or backward
Speech and writing isn’t correlated, in usual human languages speech comes first, then a writing system is based around that, for heptapods, they understand everything first, and then speak to actualize their understanding
Heptapods writing is logographic, since it uses characters rather than an alphabet, but Banks later calls it semagraphic because it turns out they don’t correlate to heptapods’ spoken language
Banks doesn’t break from the future she sees, she and all others who can perceive time simultaneously play out their futures as though in a play
She considers her daughter’s future life before going to conceive her