Point of View

Near to the Wild Heart is written using an incredibly experimental narrative style. Most of the novel is written using a third-person limited omniscient narrator, which usually tracks the intricate thoughts and feelings of Joana. Examples include a passage such as this: "Joana suddenly remembered, with no prior warning, herself standing at the top of the stairs. She didn't know if she'd ever been at the top of a staircase, looking down, at lots of busy people, dressed in satin, with large fans" (95). However, not all of the novel is written in this way.

At many different points in the novel, the narrative style will switch to a first-person perspective, usually but not always Joana's, usually without warning or distinguishing punctuation, such as in the middle of a paragraph. This is one of the many passages where the narrator's perspective suddenly slips from third person...