Point of View

This story is written from the perspective of an omniscient narrator, who refers to the characters in third person. This narrative perspective is consistent throughout the entire story. One potential exception occurs in paragraph 5. When the boy's mother notices someone she recognizes on the bus, the narrative point of view shifts into what appears to be the thought processes of the boy's mother. Throughout the story, the narrator refers to the characters in third person, for example, the narrator refers to them as "she and her husband" (par. 5). However, in this bus scene, the narration is as follows, "Whom did that woman resemble? She resembled Rebecca Borisovna" (par. 5). In this example, the narrator appears to directly reflect the mother's thought processes, which differs from the typical omniscient narrating style that is apparent in the rest of the story.

Nabokov uses the narrative point of view...