Point of View

This novel is primarily written from an omniscient third party point of view until Part Three, when the chapters about the Salvation Army girl are written in first person narrative, with Bertrand Von Muller being the narrator.

Because of the third person omniscient narrator, the reader is privy to the thoughts of all characters; however, the author tends to spend most of the novel in the minds and actions of a few major characters. The thoughts and opinions of the major characters are religiously and politically slanted, so when the characters present a statement, the reader is aware that these prejudices exist, and can apply these statements to the characterization process rather than a presentation of immutable facts concerning the story.

Remoteness is inherent in the third person narrative style, and it is compounded in this novel by the number of characters, the insertion of essay-like...