Point of View

The Bandit Queens is written from a third person limited point of view, through the lens of Geeta, a widow living in a rural Indian village. The author chooses to employ this lens in order to give the reader access to the protagonist’s internal thoughts and emotions while focusing the narrative on her relationships with the other women in the village. Through Geeta’s internal monologues, the reader is able to understand her belief that she is isolated despite other characters actively trying to engage with her. By way of example, when Saloni invites her the party, Geeta “assume[s] the invite [is] a perfunctory social convection at best, and a trap design to humiliate her at worst” (144). Her “memories of walking back home from Deepa-aunty’s hose, alone and covered in garbage, [keep] her in hiding long after Ramesh [has] disappeared” despite the...