Point of View

Hotel World uitilizes a complicated range of narrative perspectives. Chapter 1 is in the first-person perspective of the ghost of Sara Wilby, who is nevertheless an omniscient narrator in most respects. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 are mainly written in the third person, and respectively concern Else, Lise, and Penny; however, each of these chapters also contains elements of the first-person, allowing the narrative to move freely into the characters' thoughts. The fifth chapter is entirely from the perspective of Clare Wilby, and the final chapter is written in the third person.

Despite the ghost's ability to move through walls and see into people's thoughts, she must be counted as an unreliable narrator as she is forgetting crucial parts of what it is to be alive, and has a naive approach to the things she sees. The narration in Penny's chapter, too, is limited to the facts as she...