Point of View

The novel is written in the third person, in the past tense. The point of view is David's throughout the book. No information is revealed in the novel that David does not have direct access to. As he begins to write, David moves into a parallel universe inside the African kraal, and the narrative moves between the two worlds with him.

Although the novel is told from David's point of view, Hemingway never directly reveals his emotions and rarely reveals his thoughts. Emotion is revealed through spare description of weather or carefully selected specific details, as when David notes a cold, gray sky. The idyllic setting in le Grau du Roi is illustrated with significant detail, as the "blue and pleasant sea" and the "rising tide" and "mullet jumping wildly." All of these convey a sense of hopefulness, of optimism and joy.

Despite the fact that...