Point of View

In Chapter 6, the narrator discusses her work as a commercial artist and illustrator, and as she ponders her work, she mentions her projects such as “the occasional commissioned book like this one,” and her statement depicts the self-reflexive and contemporary nature of the narrative view of this novel: the narrator speaks to herself and to us intimately, as we are in the room with her observing and viewing what she sees herself. This moment in the book can be viewed as a small sample of a highly modern voice, a definite example of a 20th-century English-speaking voice of a very personal narrator, who reveals each and every thought to the reader, even those that do not reflect her in the best light. The novel’s first part, chapters 1 through 8, are more linear in style, typical in logical order, and the narrator progresses with fairly clear...