Point of View

Lorrie Moore tells her short story collection “Bark” in the first and third-person narrative, depending on the story. The short stories “The Juniper Tree” and “Thank You For Having Me” are both told in the first-person perspective, while the short stories “Debarking”, “Paper Losses”, “Foes”, “Wings”, “Referential”, and “Subject to Search” are all told in the third-person. The stories “Debarking”, “The Juniper Tree”, “Paper Losses”, “Foes”, “Referential” and “Thank You For Having Me” maintain a limited-omniscient narrative mode regardless as to the person narrating, allowing the reader to learn and know only as much as the characters themselves come to learn and know things. In “Wings” and “Subject to Search”, the narration is omniscient, giving the reader all needed information as the stories progress. For example, in “Subject to Search”, though the vast number of people in the world have not yet heard about Abu...