Point of View

The story is narrated by Huw Morgan, the youngest member of the large Morgan family who lives in a small coal-mining village built along a seam of coal. Huw, now an elderly man, narrates the story vividly as though he were reliving it. It is written in first person and is all from Huw's memory of his life as a bright, observant and sensitive person.

Huw's view is omniscient and, although he is a reliable narrator of his own life, we are limited to his view of others' feelings and his own perspective. He speaks with such sentimentality that we get the impression Huw could have embellished much of his storytelling. Since he is narrating the story as an older man, his childhood may not have been as ideal as he remembers it. Once Huw begins telling us about a memory, it becomes part of the...