Point of View

Sheila Heti tells her novel “How Should a Person Be?” in the first-person, stream-of-consciousness narrative mode from her own point of view. This is done for at least two reasons. First, because Sheila is both writer and character, and because the novel is semiautobiographical, it is only natural that she should tell the novel from her point of view. Sheila personally relates events that occur to the fictionalized version of herself and incorporates elements of her own real life into the novel as well. Secondly, the novel takes on the stream-of-consciousness aspect due to the fact that Sheila is both writer and character, and because the novel is told in first-person. The reader is given a glimpse into the mind of Sheila, where thoughts, feelings, and events jumble together, and where Sheila’s thoughts and feelings move from one situation or consideration to the next...