Perspective

This nonfiction book is written in the third person limited perspective. This means that the person telling the story is writing a biography about the book's title subject, Gertrude Bell, and the author delivers the events and points of significance of Gertrude's life from a limited point of view. Because the book is a biography, the author relies on extensive research of Gertrude's life to understand her life and the type of person she was. Given the amount of knowledge gleaned from research about Gertrude, the author is able to supply some insight into the motives, feelings or actions of Gertrude and some of the other people who are important in her life. When there are conversations detailed, the author can simply relate what the other person says, and although the author may guess at the other person's thoughts, he cannot share them with the reader. Because the...