Point of View

The novel is told from third person point of view. The author is omniscient, knowing all characters' motivations and feelings. There are so many misunderstandings in the story, and assumptions and mistaken judgments, that this would quickly become very confusing without one authoritative voice to bring all things together.

The story stays mainly with the main character, Belinda, but does skip to different characters now and again. This allows important events to be shown that Belinda is not present for. Although events are often shown through Belinda's eyes, she can be a very difficult character to get any sense of emotion from, and as such, scenes with Mr. Hervey and Lady Delacour are often much more lively. Because of this, Belinda is often engaged in dialogue that is designed to bring out her true feelings towards matters, and the author prefers this method than simply telling...