Point of View

The novel is written in the third-person past tense and utilizes an omniscient narrator. The narration frequently shifts between character perspectives, conveying both the actions and thoughts of most named characters in the novel. This omniscient perspective allows the novel to explore all personal perspectives and moral angles of the overall phenomena represented by this time period and these circumstances. For example, because the reader has access to both the thoughts of Dr. Limb and the patients, the reader can examine the factors of the hospital’s regimens from multiple angles of moral investigation. Nonetheless, the novel still appears to distinctly vindicate the actions and perspectives of the patients over those of the medical establishment.

Another salient example of this omniscience is the novel’s shifts between the world of the hospital and the experiences of outside characters such as Sarah and Manny. Sarah and...