Point of View

The book’s narrative point of view is tied closely to its structure, in that the story of each of its three parts is recounted from a different perspective – Part 1 from that of the unnamed grandmother, and Part 2 from that of the circus trainer who interacts with the grandmother’s daughter. At times in both Parts 1 and 2, the points of view move back and forth between that of the primary narrators to those of secondary narrators, creating a sense of shifting perspectives that reflect the complexities of animal/human interactions at the thematic core of the novel. The point of view of Part 3, meanwhile, echoes this sense of shifting narrative but becomes even more complex. It it starts from the perspective of a third-person limited narrator focusing on the experiences of baby polar bear Knut, but as Knut becomes more self-aware, the narrative becomes more...