Point of View

Each pair of chapters in Cloud Atlas is told from its own point of view. "The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing" and "Letters from Zedlgheim" are told in the first person, via journal entries and letters. "Luisa Rey" is structured as a pulp mystery novel and told in the third person as if seen by an omniscient observer. The fourth and eighth chapters, "Timothy Cavendish," are written as the basis for a screenplay and told as a first person narrative.

The "Sonmi-451" chapters (the fifth and seventh) are constructed as a question and answer style interview. The middle sixth chapter (Sloosh'a's Crossin') returns to a first-person narrative, told by the young man, Zachry.

Setting

The setting in Cloud Atlas changes with each chapter. The novel takes the reader from the South Sea Islands (in "Adam Ewing") to contemporary London (in "Timothy Cavendish") to post-apocalypse Hawaii (in...