Point of View

Michael Morpurgo tells his novel Shadow in the first-person limited-omniscient narrative mode, from the points of view of Matt, Aman, and Grandpa. The novel is a combination of three distinct people and three distinct stories best told by the people who themselves lived the events they now relate. The novel begins and ends with Matt serving as narrator, setting the stage for the novel and concluding it. Grandpa serves as narrator while speaking with Aman, and Aman serves as narrator in recounting the events of his past and the events which led him and his Mum to England.

Aman’s story forms the core of the novel, for it is from his story that the circumstances of the present –being kept in Yarl’s Wood, and the efforts of Matt and Grandpa to free him –are possible. Because none of the characters know exactly what...