Narration

This story is narrated from the first-person point of view, meaning that the story is narrated from Clay's perspective and is limited to his thoughts and impressions of the action around him. Many critics have noted that Clay maintains a detached sense of irony in his narrative perspective. This detached tone is in part indicative of Clay's nearly constant drug use, and in part an expression of his complete sense of alienation from his own feelings, as well as from any real emotional contact with his friends and family.

Flashback Sequences

The novel is set during Clay's Christmas vacation from college. Yet interspersed with this central narrative flow of events are flashbacks to events from Clay's childhood. The flashbacks are scripted in italic type in order to set them off from the central narrative and indicate a shift in the narrative mode. Although nothing in the story directly...