Point of View

The novel is told from the third-person, limited, point of view. The narrator is reliable, entirely effaced, and unnamed. Bush, the main character, is one of two central protagonists and a central figure in all of the scenes in the novel. The narrator divulges frequent internal thoughts of the protagonist, but not of other characters. The majority of the story is told through action and dialogue; revealed thoughts are frequent but generally are used for characterization rather than plot development. The novel, unlike the other novels in the series, is told from the viewpoint of Bush whereas the other ten novels are related from the viewpoint of Hornblower. This construction element allows Hornblower to be presented in an extremely positive and strong light—gone is the internal turmoil of other novels in the series, replaced entirely with Hornblower's decisive insights and successful outcomes.

The third-person...