Point of View

The point of view in Ninth House is third person limited, and switches back and forth between Alex and Darlington’s perspectives. Understanding Alex’s thoughts and motivations is important in enabling the reader to sympathize with Alex. Her resistance to certain things, such as ghosts, is explained through an immersion into her past experiences, thoughts, and feelings. Seeing things from Alex’s point of view is also important in unraveling the mystery of Tara’s murder, which is central to the novel’s plot. By following Alex’s process of investigation and piecing together of information, the audience is given the opportunity to crack the case with Alex, and thus becomes just as eager as she is to solve the mystery.

While Alex is the main character of the novel and thus controls the point of view for most of the chapters, seeing things...