Point of View

Marilynne Robinson's "Lila" is written using a limited third-person point of view. The narrator's perspective is heavily filtered, focusing almost exclusively on Lila's thoughts and emotions, and this allows for a more detailed exploration of the very personal kinds of pain and suffering that Lila experiences. Because Lila's primary emotions are loneliness, shame and a fear of abandonment, the novel's themes center around these feelings. The novel begins with Lila as a lonely, abandoned child and progresses to her adulthood in a highly disjointed chronology that incorporates the past and present simultaneously. Even once Lila is happily married to Reverend Ames, her brutal past makes it difficult for her to accept happiness and love.

As an uprooted woman from childhood, Lila finds little comfort in the settled life of a preacher's wife, primarily because her distrustful nature leads her to fear its end. Constantly considering...