Point of View

The novel is written from the first person point of view of the main character Charles. By writing Fire Exit from Charles’s perspective, the author has located the novel’s narrative tension, action, and stakes within Charles’s distinct inner world. Indeed, all of the plot points that arise on the page are inspired by Charles’s experiences and by the way that he sees himself, the other characters, and the world around him.

As a result, the entirety of the novel is rendered according to Charles’s outlook. Because he lives a solitary life, much of the novel’s plot line is limited to Charles’s insular world and internal experience. The reader might refer to a passage from Chapter 1 to understand this formal dynamic. After studying Mary and Elizabeth’s house across the river, Charles goes inside, saying: “I was going to...