Points of View

The point of view in this novel is third person seen through the eyes of most of the main characters. The narration is omniscient and reliable. The story is told through both dialogue and the inner thoughts of the main characters, relying equally on both.

At first the main character of the story appears to be Charles Wychwood. The reader spends the majority of the first two parts of the book following Charles through his days of obsession as he attempts to discover the true identity of the man in the portrait. However, even in this early part of the novel the writer jumps from character to character sometimes in the middle of a single scene. It is sometimes difficult for the reader to know whose eyes he is viewing the scene through. However, by writing the novel in this fashion, the reader is not left...