Then We Came to the End

What is the narrator point of view in the novel, Then We Came to the End?

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The majority of the book is written in the first person plural point of view. First person means that the story is told from the perspective of one person (I) or in the case of plural (we), many people. The pronouns “I” and “we” can be used as the subject of a sentence. For example, the author writes, "We didn't know who was stealing things from other people's workstations. Always small items--postcards, framed photographs. We had our suspicions but no proof." The author uses the collective "we" to communicate as if all the creatives in the group are really one entity. The story is told by an unnamed narrator but it could have been any, or all, of the creatives.

The author deviates from the first person perspective used throughout the rest of the book to use the third person point of view in the chapter titled "The thing to do and the right place to be." This chapter is all about Lynn and is told as if an unseen narrator tells not only about what she is doing but what she is thinking. Third person perspective is characterized by using the pronouns he, she and they. For example, the author writes, "She promises to call when she is out of surgery. He protests again, but she insists. She hangs up and staggers over to the white leather sofa." The third person point of view is the most common one used in literature but in this story the point of view is also omniscient as if an unseen narrator tells the reader what Lynn is thinking as opposed to a limited point of view which just points out activities and events as the characters move about in the story.

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