Point of View

The short story is written from a collective first person point of view. At the start of the story, however, this narrative entity is not readily apparent. Indeed, the narrator's voice resonates as a third person omniscient point of view, as if adhering to the narrative rules of a traditional fairy tale. This classical fairy tale tone complicates itself when the narrator begins employing the direct address: "But those eyes are all you will be able to glimpse of the forest assassins [and the] wolfsong is the sound of the rending you will suffer, in itself a murdering" (141). In this passage, the narrator speaks directly to the reader, or alternately to another unidentified, yet perceived listener. Then, on the second page of the short story, the point of view becomes even more complex, when the narrator begins employing first person plural pronouns: "We try and...