Point of View

"Moonlit Landscape with Bridge" is written from a third-person narratorial perspective with access to the inner thoughts of the Minister of the Interior. Smith employs two specific narratorial techniques throughout the story that help establish some of the major questions that the story poses. The narrator, for example, is not entirely objective. On the contrary, the third-person narrator in the story often offers ironic judgement of the Minister, its central character. One example of this judgmental narrator comes when the Minister steps out of his car to help distribute water to the starving and thirsty citizens in front of the municipal building. "He had reclaimed his shoe," the narrator says, "and now, without planning to, found that he was opening his arms wide. Had he come to embrace them all?" (5). This description by the narrator parallels that of Jesus Christ, a savior and performer of...