Point of View

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps her House is told through a third-person omniscient narrator. Each chapter focuses on a different character but still reveals the thoughts and feelings of the background characters as well. This style of narration is especially useful considering that the characters never openly discuss their traumatic pasts or secrets. Getting a glimpse into these is crucial to understanding the characters’ actions and motivations.

This narration style stays consistent throughout the novel, with the exception of Chapter 3. Chapter 3 is told through a second-person narrator. This means that the narrator addresses the reader directly. For instance, the narrator says, “You can bite your lower lip and keep your eyes on the baby, you can say to yourself that what he is doing cannot be that terrible because it does not wake the baby, it does not make her cry even though she is...