Point of View

The novel is written from Grace Davitt’s first-person point of view. In the opening chapters of the novel, Grace is seven years old. She turns eight in Chapter 16, and she is nine by the time her mother disappears and commits suicide in Chapters 27 and 28. Therefore, Grace’s narrative is rendered in her youthful, childlike perspective. Because she is so young, her point of view dictates her stream of consciousness narration. The ways in which she renders the narrative world, the relationships and conflicts which define it, are steeped in whimsy, enchantment, and fantasy. The author introduces this narrative dynamic in the opening passages of Chapter 1. While her mother is telling her a story about a time before there was “true darkness,” Grace asks why “twilight” is called “twilight” (3). “‘Because [twi] rhymes with sky,’ my mother said. ‘It’s a code word for blue.’ Code...