Point of View

The point of view of the novel is limited omniscient in third person voice. The first narrator is Hugh and he is the only character carried from the first chapter of the novel to the last. Nearly every character in the novel is given the opportunity to be the narrator at some point, but the story is told mainly from the perspective of the main characters Llewelyn, Ellen, Edward and Hugh. Limited thoughts and emotions are shared with the reader by each narrator, but the bulk of this information is given in dialogue and physical character traits.

The author chooses to allow the actions, faces and physical interactions of the characters to express emotional states and the reader is forced to infer motivations. The human experiences of this novel are complex and intense, so this detached technique allows the author to guide the reader with a...