Point of View

The Woman in the Purple Skirt is narrated from the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan's first person point of view. Though the narrator has complete narrative authority, almost the entirety of her narration is consumed by descriptions of the Woman in the Purple Skirt. The narrator's inability to tell her own story is inspired not only by her obsession with following and watching the Woman in the Purple Skirt, but by her profound feelings of loneliness, invisibility, and alienation. The few times the narrator does refer to her own experiences, she uses her observations of or considerations on the Woman in the Purple Skirt as a vehicle for talking about herself. For example, at the start of the novel, the narrator is determined to figure out who the Woman in the Purple Skirt reminds her of. At first, she thinks the Woman resembles her sister...