Point of View

All of the stories are told in the past tense, and most are told from the third person limited point-of-view, meaning a narrator provides the reader access to one character's thoughts and emotions. This is true of “Fast Forward,” “Beggar Boy,” “Freak Street,” “Dreaming of Ghana,” and “America the Great Equalizer.” This form of narration is particularly useful in “Beggar Boy” and “Dreaming of Ghana” because the protagonists are prone to complex fantasies that provide insight into their motivations. In “Beggar Boy,” the reader is told that Ramesh believes that robbing the bank is his “destiny” (34) because he wants to get attention from his mother. Shortly thereafter, the narrator describes Ramesh's fantasy of his father pouring him a whiskey and consoling him about his mother's absence, saying, “We will survive” (39). This is a clear indication that Ramesh is desperately seeking attention from both of his...