Point of View

Vonnegut's Mother Night is told from a first-person narrative and it is a book within a book written by the narrator. Because the story is told this way, you only know events as the narrator recalls them; therefore, as a reader, you are forced to take the narrator at his word. As the story unfolds, the narrator discovers more about himself as does the reader. The book is centered on the narrator's experiences. He is the protagonist, but also his own worst enemy. The narrator spends time recounting his life and his encounters with the other characters. As he discovers more about who he really is, it is clear that the other characters are in the book to help reveal the narrator's true self. A common disadvantage of first-person narration is that a first-person narrator cannot adequately characterize himself or herself, but in this case, the...