Point of View

The point of view shifts from the narrator to Tracy Whitney, and back again, throughout the story. It is the narrator's voice that binds the various threads of the story together — the suicide of Tracy's mother, how life in a women's prison affects the inmates, the skill that career criminals develop in reading people and sensing their weakneses. Thus the narrator sets the stage and connects the sometimes-jagged edges of the play. Tracy, on the other hand, shares some of her thoughts and feelings about the events in her life and when that happens the point of view is hers. As narrator, Tracy's voice is that of a maladjusted child who has not learned to accept the world for what it is. The narrator, on the other hand, offers the steady voice and point of view of an adult who has seen the world and...