Point of View

Susan Barker tells her novel The Incarnations in the first and third-person narrative modes, alternating between an unnamed third-person narrator, and Shuxiang’s narration. Shuxiang’s narration takes the form of letters and accounts of her previous lives as they have involved Wang, and so it is only natural that Shuxiang write about her own personal experiences in the first person. Sections of the novel in which Wang is present, but Shuxiang is not, are told in the third-person narrative mode, allowing the reader to trace his events from a distant and objective standpoint, as though the reader, too, were watching Wang’s life the way Shuxiang is. As a result, there is consistency between the reincarnation-conscious accounts of Shuxiang, and the daily life and struggles of Wang as he endeavors to discover the identity of the writer of the letters.

Language and Meaning

Susan...