Point of View

The story is told by a third-person narrator, who can see into the characters' inner thoughts. This narrator does not reveal everything to the reader, however, but artistically provides tidbits of information and details about the characters' behavior, when he wants the reader to guess what is going on in their heads. This vagueness is a feature of Japanese writing, where the writer likes to convey information through symbolic details, rather than just coming out and saying what he means. This makes the reader do a little bit of work, trying to figure out what the plot really is, and to some extent, this leaves the plot open to interpretation, so that it is not clear to the reader what conclusion is going to follow the last scene of the book. Perhaps Kaname will embrace Western culture and begin to keep Louise as his mistress, or...