Point of View

Many of the stories are told from the first person point of view of the narrator. The narrator may be describing an event that happens to him, or an event that occurs to another. In the story "Dry Rations," the narrator describes what happens from a first person point of view, but most of the action and changes occur to the other three men sent off into the woods to build a road. The narrator is mostly an observer, though he occasionally talks to and interacts with the other characters. In the story "The Bathhouse" the narrator describes the more general conditions of political convicts when they are forced to go to the bathhouse. This is a description of the general routine and why the political prisoners all hate bathhouse day, and what difficulties they suffer. Likewise, in the story "Lend-Lease," the general benefits of receiving...