Point of View

Poland, by James Michener, is written in the third person point of view. The narrator is the author, Michener. The use of the third person allows the author to provide the details and historical background that is required for the reader's knowledge and information. Since Poland is an historical novel, Michener provides all the exciting details and background of the rich history of Poland, from the thirteenth century to 1981. This is the advantage of the third person narrative and is particularly advantageous in a historical novel that combines fact with fiction—a format in which Michener excels. The author concentrates on three families, each representative of a different class, and follows them through the different periods in Polish history. A section at the beginning of the book gives a chapter-by-chapter description of which parts of each chapter are fact and which are fiction. This allows...