Point of View

The point of view of Honor oscillates between third-person limited and the first-person lens of Meena. The third-person limited chapters follow Smita and give the reader access to her inner thoughts and feelings. The author utilizes this intimate yet removed point of view to enact Smita’s relationship with India in the text. While Smita grew up in Mumbai and is familiar with the customs, geography, and culture, she does not consider India her home and finds reasons to emotionally detach herself from the country. In the same way the narrator has access to Smita’s inner thoughts and feelings but still adopts a voyeuristic tone. If the author had used a third-person omniscient instead of a limited point of view, the reader would not have access to Smita’s particular history, frustrations, and emotional conflicts that develop Umrigar’s thematic explorations of home, love...