Point of View

Author Gary Paulsen chooses a third-person, omniscient narrator to tell the tale of the Rifle. This is necessary for several reasons. The Rifle's "life" spans several centuries, and Paulsen is interested in how the Rifle changed hands over the years and how it ended up in Harv Kline's living room. Therefore, he must adopt an all-knowing narrator who is able to achieve a "bird's eye" perspective to track the Rifle's journey.

Additionally, Paulsen's narrator is able to evaluate the tragic series of events leading up to Richard's death on an almost subatomic level. This is important to understanding just how arbitrary as well as unique the Rifle's killing of Richard was. The narrator describes individual sparks coming from the log that Kline accidentally pulled out of the fireplace, and how a single spark managed to find its way inside the Rifle to the powder, and how...