Point of View

The novel is told through a third-person omniscient narrator, meaning the narrator has access to the actions and emotions of each character in the story. Not only does the narrator spend time focusing on the thoughts and actions of the major characters, but will often go aside to minor characters who are never mentioned again for the sake of providing historical and contextual information that enriches the larger narrative. The many and ever-changing perspectives allow the narrator to simultaneously share many different perspectives of a morally complicated story.

Language and Meaning

There is a distinct shift in the use of language between the sections dealing with the Duke family and the sections dealing with the Sel family. In the sections pertaining to the Duke family, extravagant language is used and many uncommon vocabulary words appear. The contrary is true for the sections pertaining to the...