Point of View

The story is told from the point of view of a omniscient, third person, though not impartial, narrator. The narrator knows a wealth of facts about the character's backgrounds and seems to know facts about the future, though the narrator does not foreshadow events very often. The narrator clearly has options and opines about the relative worth of certain characters or the importance of certain situations in the novel. This is sometimes disconcerting as it makes the hand of the author too visible and takes the reader out of the novel from time to time. The narrator is reliable, though part of the reliability of the narrator stems from the fact that it is clear that the voice of the narrator is also the direct voice of the author.

The plot is also moved forward by two other devices: epistolatory narration and dialogue. There are many...