Point of View

Grace is narrated in a close third person, and is from the perspective of the protagonist, Grace, for the majority of the novel. Grace's perspective colors every aspect of the narration, and all descriptive passages are moored in Grace's frame of reference. Her views of the world around her are often bleak, as they reflect her current circumstances in her struggle for survival. The narration is peppered with free indirect style, but only from Grace's point of view, except in Chapter 6: Crow. For example, when Bart is described after being beaten, the description features phrases that could only come from the mind of Grace, but they are not labelled explicitly as Grace's thoughts: "His eyes have become like Sarah's, like that of the unseeing ox. Or perhaps he is just thinking himself forward step by step, his teeth set, his eyes staring into the far-off...