Point of View

The author uses first person point of view in the narrative. The only narrator is Jahanara, but the author switches from the grandmother speaking to her granddaughters in the frame narration at the beginning of each part, to Jahanara telling the story in real-time as it is happening from her point of view. The majority of the story is told in the real-time narration. Readers are privy to Jahanara's thoughts only, though there is a mix of exposition, dialog, and inner monologue throughout the novel. The author uses the frame story to establish the reliability of his narrator. Since the grandmother is telling her granddaughters details about events that happened to her in the past, the story carries more weight than if the young Jahanara had just started speaking with no frame of reference for the reader. Since the setting is historical, the frame allows the...