Point of View

The point of view of the novel changes slightly throughout. In the prologue, we have an omniscient narrator who is aware of the past and the present for all of the characters, though this narrator plays his cards close and stays vague about the specifics: “This story ends in blood. Every story begins in blood: a squalling baby yanked from the womb, bathed in mucus and half a quart of their mother’s blood … This story begins with five little girls, each born in a splash of her mother’s blood, cleaned up, patted dry, then turned into proper young ladies, instructed in the wifely arts to become perfect partners and responsible parents, mothers who help with homework and do the laundry, who belong to church flower societies and bunco clubs, who send their children to cotillion and private schools” (9). Here, we see that the...