Point of View

Beautiful World, Where Are You is written from the third person point of view. In the odd-numbered chapters, this third person narrator shifts back and forth between scenes from Alice and Eileen's lives. In these chapters, the narrator depicts the main characters' experiences in a measured and matter-of-fact tone, and largely resists commenting upon their experiences in an emotional manner. For example, Chapters 1 and 3 open with descriptions of each woman, that appear as follows: "A woman sat in a hotel bar, watching the door," and "At twenty past twelve on a Wednesday afternoon, a woman sat behind a desk in a shared office in Dublin" (21). This narrative tonality contrasts sharply with that employed in the even-numbered chapters. In these sections, the narration shifts into the first person points of view of either Alice or Eileen as they write emails to one another. In Chapter 2, for...