Point of View

"In the Kindergarten" is primarily told from Shaona's point of view. The story is told in the third person, which means that the narrative voice refers to Shaona as "she" or "Shaona," rather than saying "I" as it would if Shaona were telling the story to the readers. Still, the information that is given to the reader is mostly limited to information that would have passed through Shaona's mind. For instance, when Teacher Shen is on the telephone at the beginning of the story, readers are given her exact words just as Shaona would have heard them, and the reader is also given the child's interpretation of what Shaona would have thought. The exact reasoning behind the teacher's behavior&mdas;whether she is taking the purslanes for her own consumption, for instance, or is taking them to sell&mdas;is never specifically explained, because Shaona does...