Point of View

The novel is written from the third-person point of view. Throughout the novel, this third person narrator alternately inhabits the primary characters Eilis Fiorello’s, Jim Farrell’s, and Nancy Sheridan’s consciousnesses. In the sequences where the narrator is situated closest to Eilis’s psyche, she describes the narrative world according to Eilis’s point of view. In those sequences where the narrator is situated closest to Jim’s and Nancy’s psyches, she describes the narrative world according to Jim’s and Nancy’s respective points of view. By allowing the narrator this flexibility and reach, the author grants the reader access to each of the protagonist’s interior worlds. In turn, the novel’s point of view creates tension between the way that Eilis, Jim, and Nancy see the world, themselves, and one another.

The reader might refer to a passage from...