Point of View

The novel, Lady Audley's Secret, opens with an omniscient and very involved narrator. The description of Audley Court is given as if one is approaching as a visitor for the very first time or watching events unfold from afar. Only at the end of the first chapter does the reader hear anything a character is thinking,which is Sir Michael wondering if he ought to propose to Lucy Graham. The next chapter begins in much the same way, a distant position of the narrator, giving an accounting of the gregarious young man aboard the Argus, heading back to England with a fortune made in Australia. All the information given to the reader is in the form of dialogue, with little intrusion from the author.

Once Robert Audley is introduced to the story does the reader have a grounding point; a character point of view that will...