Point of View

The Prologue and the Epilogue are told from first person from the perspective of Ruth. The rest of the story is told through third person limited and focuses on Iris's experience. Iris is reliable, but sometimes interprets situations from the naive understanding of a child. The interesting choice of the use of two different point of view surprises the reader. In the Prologue, the narrator is an old woman reflecting on her family's story. Since the rest of the novel seems to be Iris's story, the reader assumes that the old woman was Iris. In the Epilogue, Ruth is revealed as the narrator.

Throughout the novel, one assumes Ruth is mentally handicapped, but she says that she was acting because she was jealous. Margarethe called her an ox, and she saw the beautiful Clara and the witty Iris. If she did not act coherent, she did...