Point of View

This story is told by a third-person omniscient narrator but the emphasis is on Gwendy’s perspective. The narrator follows Gwendy through her life from the time she gets the button box when she is 12 to her college graduation ten years later when Farris gets the box back from her. The narrator shares not only Gwendy’s conversations with other people but also her thoughts and emotions as she deals with the button box and tries to determine its purpose and place in her life. This emphasis on Gwendy is important because a good deal of the story is built upon how Gwendy changes and grows while she has the box. She begins to think about it differently and react to it differently. If the narrator did not have insight into Gwendy’s thoughts and feelings, there would be no way to measure the ways...