Point of View

That Kind of Mother is written from the omniscient-third-person point of view. Omniscient-third-person means that the narrator knows everything about the characters in the story, including their thoughts and emotions. Alam’s use of the omniscient-third-person point of view enables him to express every character’s feelings without constantly switching between the first-person point of view for multiple characters. That Kind of Mother’s narrator speaks with wisdom that suggests an omniscient understanding, not just of the novel’s characters, but of life itself. The novel’s narrative exposition often contains revelations about retrospective understanding and the existence of intangible forces like fate and God. Since the novel’s narration focuses mostly on Rebecca, readers receive an intimate but objective look into her mind. Readers’ perspective of Rebecca’s life is not filtered through her eyes, but rather the detached perspective of the unbiased narrator...