Point of View

The novel is written from a third person limited point of view. This means that the third person narrator follows Bitter's perspective throughout the novel. Instead of attending to the other minor characters' interior realms, the narrator focuses on Bitter's experience of the world and her emotional evolutions. The reader can witness this close relationship between the narrator and Bitter's character particularly within the opening pages of Chapter 1. After describing Bitter's many reasons for not participating in the revolution, the narrator says: "It didn't matter. None of it fucking mattered" (1). Because the third person narrator's perspective is inextricable from Bitter's, the reader understands that these lines originate from Bitter's consciousness. The narrator, therefore, adopts Bitter's opinions and delivers them as narrative truth. Bitter believes the revolution is pointless, and thus the narrator insists upon the hopelessness of the cause.

The third person limited point of...