Comment on language and meaning

Because the third person narrator vacillates between each of the Hildebrandt family member's distinct vantage points throughout the novel, the narrative's linguistic stylings vary accordingly. For example, the syntax and diction the author employs in the sections devoted to Becky contrast starkly to those employed in Perry's sections. In Perry's opening section at the novel's start, the narrator presents his philosophical questions about the soul and the body, saying: "If the soul was merely a psychic artifact created by the body, it was tautologically self-evident why Perry's soul was in Perry and not in Judson. And yet it didn't feel self-evident.