Point of View

The narrative unfolds from the first-person and past tense point of view. This gives the story a sense of intimacy and realism, drawing the reader into the first hand experiences of its central character. There is a noteworthy exception of the narrator's sexual encounter with a group of men in a subway station, which is narrated in first person.

On another level, and as previously discussed, the narrative can also be seen as evoking the point of view of a community and that of homosexual men coming of age in America in the 1950's and 60's. At this point, it is interesting to look at point of view from the perspective of stereotype. Generally speaking, at that time the public perception of homosexual men and their behavior agrees with the narrator's self-portrait here of self-loathing, indulgent, and promiscuously obsessed with anonymous sex. In portraying the narrator...