Point of View

Eimear McBride tells her novel “A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing” in the first-person limited-omniscient present-tense perspective from the point of view of the main character and narrator, the unnamed narrator. The novel is deeply introspective and personal, and is therefore told in the first-person narrative mode. Much of the novel involves the secretive thoughts and explanations rendered by the narrator, which are accessible only to the reader, but not to other characters, and this is possible through use of the first-person narrative mode. Because the story is so personal, and deals with such intimate things, the first-person narrative mode creates a private glimpse into a private life. Because the novel is told in the first-person present-tense as events unfold, the narrator does not know everything that is going on around her beyond her own experience of things as they happen. As such, the reader...