Point of View

Most of the stories in "Difficult Loves" focus on only one person's point of view, usually telling the story in the third person. There are three which are told by a first-person narrator, and this narrator is always revealed to be a terrible person, who only cares about himself. For instance, the hermit from "The House of the Beehives," who is also a rapist and a murderer, eagerly awaits the downfall of civilization, saying, "And I don't cut back the brambles, either the ones now clambering over the roof of the house or those already creeping like a slow avalanche over the cultivated ground; I should like them to bury everything, myself included" (Riviera Stories, The House of the Beehives, p. 31). When the narration is in the third person, it tends to be much more sympathetic, showing humans trying their best but often failing. Sometimes, the...