Point of View

The point of view in the novel Plainsong comes from the perspective of an omniscient third person narrator. In the beginning of the novel, the reader cannot know if the narrator is omniscient or limited to a perspective near a principle character. Over time we see first that the narrator is able to describe the actions of characters while the principle character of the particular chapter is not present. Later, and only in a few instances, the narrator accesses the thoughts of the characters.

Throughout much of the text the narrator maintains a distance and reports only on the characters actions and spoken words. This distance seems to create a feeling that the narrator is more reliable than most. By usually refraining from reporting on a character's inner thoughts, the narrator leaves the tasks of speculation and interpretation to the readers. By saying less somehow the...