Point of View

The story is written from the third-person limited omniscient, offering insight into Avey's thoughts and impressions. Avey is described moving through her retirement trip post-widowhood with friends who only know her in the role of the reserved and dignified wife of a businessman, and are therefore caught off-guard by the uncharacteristically impulsive decision Avey makes to disembark. Their chagrin is a fitting foil to Avey's more raw and honest examination of her current circumstance. As she emerges from the facade she has maintained with her friends, every step she takes back into their world causes her physical pain, and it is in those moments of pain that her mind returns to her past. These flashbacks give insight into both the essential Avey, before she so changed herself to match a social ideal, and how that change eventually came about. Her perspective looking back is characterized by...