Point of View

The point of view of the authors, Charles and Mary Lamb, is third person omniscient throughout all twenty tales. Since the authors are completely familiar with the original Shakespeare plays and the tales they write are abridged story form versions of the play, they write with total knowledge of the characters, their motives, the plot developments and denouements. They tell the tales using exposition and dialogue. They use quotes from Shakespeare's original plays, thus letting Shakespeare's point of view come to life for their readers, many of whom are children. They use their knowledge and love of Shakespeare's plays to make the characters come to life and make their readers either love and admire or dislike or even hate them. They portray Shakespeare's characters in the tragedies as bigger than life, having extreme and forceful feelings of love, envy, avarice, loyalty and misery. The comedies are...