Point of View

The novel is written from the first person point of view of the unnamed protagonist. By writing the novel from his main character’s first person perspective, the author is locating the novel’s central conflicts and stakes, explorations and discoveries within the narrator’s mind, heart, body, and experience. In an overarching sense, the first person narrator’s voice and tone are open and honest, confessional and contemplative. “I took his hands,” the narrator says when he first arrives at the Palace and reunites with Juan in Chapter I, “The Palace,” “all knuckles and finger bones, into my own. He was near death, and I would have promised him anything” (7). Placed at the forefront of the narrative, a moment such as this one introduces the reader to the narrator as a vulnerable and malleable young man. Although the narrator’s account over the course...