Point of View

The novel is written by a third person, semi-omniscient narrator which follows different characters at different times of the book, and often retells events as a simple third-person narrator, without giving insight into what is in the characters' minds. The general course of the novel follows Ti Noël's life, but he is often not the central character in the action of the moment. Though Ti Noël begins the first part of the novel as the central character in the first chapter, and though the reader sees Ti Noël's thoughts about the wax heads and the calves' heads, the majority of the first part of the novel centers around Macandal, a character whose inner life is a mystery to the reader.

The novel often shows the point of view of the slaves in general. At the end of the first part, when Macadal is...