The 42nd Parallel | Style

The 42nd Parallel Style

Point of View

The novel is written from the third person point of view. The narrator is the author, John Dos Passos. This approach allows the author to establish the setting and to supply background information to the reader about people, places and events. The book contains plenty of dialogue between the various characters which allows them to present their own views and opinions.

The use of the third person allows the reader to learn more information about the characters and the different situations. The book is a narrative of the lives of the different characters. Dos Passos could have written in the first person and allowed each of the main characters to tell their own story but the use of the first person confines the reader's knowledge to the events that occur in the presence of the storyteller. The reader's knowledge is limited to the knowledge of the storyteller. The use of...
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