Point of View

A prominent stylistic aspect of Exhalation is that most of the stories have exegetic narrators: that is, the story’s creation is explained within the story. The first major technique is direct address, also known as apostrophe, in which a narrator has a particular listener in mind. “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” for example, is narrated in the first person by Fuwaad as he tells his story to the Caliph of Baghdad. Fuwaad addresses the story to “Your Majesty” and makes reference to the ongoing act of storytelling. There are also stories-within-the-story, during which Fuwaad quotes the stories Bashaarat told to him. All of these can be explained exegetically, as Fuwaad recites the entire narrative out loud. Similarly, the narrators of “Exhalation” and “What’s Expected of Us” and the parrot speaker in “The Great Silence” all speak directly to the reader as...