Point of View

The High House is narrated from the first person points of view of the three main characters: Sally, Caro, and Pauly. This means that all of the sections marked “Sally” are written from Sally’s first person point of view, while all of those marked with “Caro” and “Pauly” are written from Caro’s and Pauly’s respective first person points of view. By allowing the three main characters’ to each tell their own stories in their own words, the author is using her narrative form to enact her thematic notions regarding survival and community. As Pauly says in Chapter 5 after the characters survive the flood and bury Grandy, “This is mercy, which is the best that we can hope for. We do what we can for one another. We try to be kind” (252). The three protagonists have indeed created a family of and with...