Point of View

This book is written in the third person, which makes everyone's viewpoint and thoughts known. Descriptive passages are simple and easy to understand but get the point across well. There is some dialog between characters, which helps convey multiple points of view. The dialog enables the reader to see that the Dogs have small, simple vocabularies because their tongues have trouble saying certain words that are hard to pronounce. Even the wolves, bears, and squirrels have conversations in later tales. The conversations show their personalities more than if Simak had just described their attitudes and thoughts.

The robot Jenkins makes quite a few observations and has a great deal of self-reflection about the state of the current world. We do not generally think of a robot as having his own thoughts and feelings, but Simak makes Jenkins seem human, without the violent tendencies. Jenkins helps subtlety...