From Hell: Being a Melodrama in Sixteen Parts Style

From Hell: Being a Melodrama in Sixteen Parts Style

Point of View

The graphic novel is related from the third-person, omniscient point of view. All characters are observed from an external perspective typical to graphic novels—the reader becomes, in effect, a voyeur in absentia to transpiring events. The novel is presented almost entirely in the 'present tense' but some scenes show flash-backs and some difficult scenes show apparent flash-forwards or, perhaps, out-of-body experiences. For example, in one scene the putative Jack the Ripper looks through a tenement window in an alley and is shocked to see an equally-shocked 1990s tenant looking back at him, a blaring television in the background. While these scenes are quite discordant in the graphic novel they are explained at some length in the subsequent textual appendix. The interior thoughts of some characters are revealed, especially the mental workings of the putative Jack the Ripper. The graphic novel's chronology is fairly complex.

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