Point of View

"The Fortunes" is comprised of four interconnected, lengthy short stories. The author uses perspective and point of view in a different way for each story.

The first story, "Gold: Celestial Railroad" is written from the third-person limited point of view, meaning that the narrator knows the thoughts and emotions of one main character, in this case Ling. An example of this would be when Little Sister mentions to Ling that she is pregnant, and she implies that he might be the father. Ling can only speculate based on her actions and words. The point of view is limited, so while the reader gets an inside look at Ling's thoughts, whether Little Sister is lying or not is unclear because she never clarifies it for him. Indeed, Ling never finds out if she was really pregnant. The author's choice to use a third-person limited point of...