Point of View

Strout uses a third person narrator who communicates the thoughts and feelings of one or two characters in each chapter. The structure varies between outright descriptions of actions and long intervals of characters’ reflections and memories, occasionally blurring the line between what is narration and what is thought. In doing so, Strout is able to convey the inner thoughts of characters and work in their point of view as if it were a first person narration, without calling into question the narrator’s reliability, and maintaining a consistent voice and sense of continuity between the chapters, despite the frequently changing perspective. This flexible point of view also allows the narrator to give updates on other characters even if they are not in the same scene as the character who is the focus of that chapter, allowing readers to keep track of multiple characters even if...