Point of View

The point of view of this novel is first person. Cathy Dollanganger tells the story of her childhood, locked in a secluded second story room in her mother's childhood home of Foxworth Hall. Cathy tells this story as though looking back on the this dark time in her life from some point in the future, perhaps as a middle-aged adult, making comments throughout the novel about the actions of her mother and her beliefs at the time that her mother was right, but her understanding as an adult herself that it was not right what her mother has done. In this way, Cathy inserts something of an authorial voice in her narration. Cathy is also something of an unreliable narrator because she is not always given the correct information about her situation by her mother or grandmother; therefore, she cannot give the correct information to the...