Point of View

The novel is written from the third person objective point of view, focusing on the thoughts, actions, and reactions of O, the central character. There are a few occasions in the first section, "The Lovers of Roissy", in which the narrator interjects with first person commentary, using the pronoun "I" to refer, for example, to exact circumstances that the narrator doesn't know. The point must be made here that in making these interjections the narrator offers no opinion or judgment on what O is experiencing. The interjections are merely, it seems, commentary from a storyteller who is, at first, unsure of the details of the story being told. These interjections disappear for the final three sections of the novel, leaving explanations to third person narration of O's thoughts and interpretations to the reader, a circumstance suggesting that as O becomes clearer on what she is experiencing...