Point of View

The Dog of the North is written from the protagonist Penny's first person point of view. By writing the novel from Penny's perspective, the author has granted her reader immediate access to Penny's most vulnerable feelings and private thoughts. Indeed, although Penny's character tends towards avoidance and evasiveness, her first person narration is unexpectedly honest, open, and confessional. The author introduces the reader to this facet of Penny's narration with the opening pages of Chapter 1. For example, immediately after Penny first relays what happened to her parents while on a trip to Mount Isa, she admits: "Though nearly five years had passed" since their disappearances, "I hadn't really been able to accept or even think about it" (7). Therefore, Penny is not attempting to hide the truth of her dysfunctional coping mechanisms. She is aware of the way she has responded to losing Ardie and Hugh...