What is the narrator point of view in the novel, Us Against You?

The collective “we” narrator allows the author to tell the story from the perspective of the Beartown community. The “we” in “Us Against You” provides entrance to the town at large, as well as movement into each individual townsperson’s life and past. The effect of this narrative technique is both isolating and compelling at once. While the reader does not initially feel a part of the community, the collective narration fortifies the title and underpinning themes of Beartown against the rest. The reader understands herself initially as an outsider.

As the novel fractures into more narrowed perspectives (the “we” narrator able to access each character’s interiority through free indirect discourse) the point of view envelopes the reader. No longer on the outskirts of the town, the reader becomes a part of the Beartown community. The author’s choice to implicate, include, and accept the reader into the communal narrative of “Us Against You,” effectively mimics the narrative structure of the novel. While the story is about Beartown and its fall, it is also a story about the individual.

Through this collective narrator the author is able to simultaneously assume the identity of the town as well as the identities of each character. The narrator therefore provides the reader entrance into each individual’s personal struggles. While the “we” often sounds defensive, reacting to acts of violence Hed people commit against Beartown, the “we” is also capable of empathy. Understanding the collective narrator as a member of the town, allows the reader to identify with both the narrator as an individual as well as each character. Through the lens of the narrator, the reader sees the characters for the truth of their identity. While no other character is privy to every facet of the other characters’ lives and interiorities, the narrator is. In this way, the collective narrator works as both an omniscient and a communally biased voice. The collective narrator often interrupts in-scene passages to comment on the events occurring on the page. The author uses this point of view to fortify themes of community and friendship, in tandem with those of otherness and isolation.