What is the author's style in The Erlking by Angela Carter?

Carter's manipulation of point of view is the most difficult stylistic element of "The Erlking." It is therefore helpful to review the shifts in point of view throughout the story. It opens with a thirdperson description of the wood, seemingly described by an outside observer: "The lucidity, the clarity of light that afternoon was sufficient to itself." Then it drifts into a more immediate and intimate secondperson address, with the "you" addressed being the reader: "There is not much in the autumn wood to make you smile." Not until the fifth paragraph of the story is the identity of the speaker revealed to be that of a first-person narrator who has, until then, spoken of the woods only in general descriptive terms. She goes on to describe meeting the Erlking and her strange and dangerous relationship with him in the first person, occasionally returning to address the reader in the second person ("Erlking will do you grievous harm") and occasionally addressing the Erlking himself in this same voice ("You sink your teeth into my throat and make me scream"). Finally, at the story's close, the first-person narration abruptly ceases, replaced by a third-person narrator who describes the former narrator as "she."

"The Erlking" begins with statements that the wood undermines human identity. The story concerns the primary, first-person narrator's frightening experience of losing her direction, will, and sense of self. The abrupt and disorienting shifts in narrative point of view create a similar effect on the reader. Upon entering the world conjured in the story, like entering the wood itself, one frequently loses one's bearings. It becomes hard to keep track of who "you" is, and the "I" who speaks appears and recedes mysteriously. Thus the shifts in point of view create a more immediate sense of the disorientation that the protagonist describes experiencing.