Point of View

The novel is written from the point of view of its main character, Polyhymnia O'Keefe. Polly is a remarkably mature young woman and there is little question about her reliability or psychological subtlety as a narrator. Her self-awareness permeates every description and every recollection, so that we are privy to the complexities of her motives and feelings to the degree we would be if we were being given these details by an omniscient third person narrator. This structural feature of the novel prompts questions about L'Engle's understanding of psychology and her conception of Polly as a character. Has L'Engle constructed a character so self-aware as to be unbelievable or unlikeable? Certainly the answer to the question must be subjective and remains the perogative of each reader, but we can say that on the spectrum of self-awareness among the different characters, Polly ranks very high. Such self-awareness...