Point of View

The point of view of the novel is central to understanding its mission. For the first thirty chapters, it seems as if the narration is a close third-person present. However, in Chapter 31 the narrator reveals itself to be an omniscient narrator that simply chose to stick tight to Adèle for the majority of the novel. In Chapter 31, the omniscient narrator moves out and away from Adèle’s story and shows Richard and Sophie as the two come together and discuss Adèle’s relationship with Xavier. As the novel progresses, the chapters continue to switch between Richard and Adèle, though toward the end Adèle’s sections become shorter and fewer in between until her narrative is entirely taken over by Richard, who ends the novel with his own voice.

While the omniscient narrator stays close to Adèle for the vast...