Point of View

Bridge of Clay is told from the perspective of Matthew Dunbar, the oldest of the Dunbar boys. It draws attention to its own status as a written story by repeatedly referring to the typewriter on which it was composed — the "old TW" (5). Matthew later reveals that the story was told to him by his brother, Clay, after the completion of the bridge and their reunion with their father (568). In turn, Clay was told all the details of his parents' marriage and their pasts by his mother, in the months leading up to her death.

This device, of having one of the main characters narrate the tale, serves the narrative in two ways. First, it deepens the comparisons between the Dunbar family history and their favorite books, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Both books are poems that were originally told aurally — that is, passed on as...