Point of View

One Amazing Thing utilizes a third-person point of view that inhabits each of the nine characters’ perspectives, and is related in the past tense. Divakaruni gives the audience insights into each character’s life before they take the stage to tell their story, then continues this structure throughout the novel to further illuminate how each person’s perspective is altered with the unfolding of every story.

The author successfully recreates the ambience of verbal storytelling by alternating the point of view and tense as each person tells their story. Jiang and Mr. and Mrs. Pritchett’s stories are told from the third-person point of view, using the present tense. Malathi, Tariq, Lily, and Mangalam’s stories are told in the past tense from the first-person point of view. Cameron tells his story in the past tense from the third person point of view. This structure...