Point of View

The point of view in English Creek is first person. The narrator has temporal distance, telling the story from a point forty years later, but the distance is downplayed by a feeling of immediacy in the voice. He addresses the reader in an intimate confessional tone, letting the reader know his thoughts and questions as they occur to his fourteen-year-old self. He is a limited omniscient narrator, omniscient in that he knows what the future will bring, but limited in that he cannot know the internal thoughts and motivations of the other characters.

The confessional quality is important to the coming of age tale, because it tracks the internal journey which personal growth involves. It is especially important for the character of Jick who has been raised in a time and tradition of children being compliant. He is a polite and helpful boy becoming a polite...