Point of View

The Exiles is told from the point of view of a third-person limited narrator. This narrator, although limited to the perspectives of four females, can see into the future of each from this moment in the past. When Ruby decides to stay permanently in Australia, the narrator slowly transforms her musings into a description of her life with knowledge from a point in the future: “She would meet a man, marry him, and they would have two daughters, Elizabeth and Evangeline, both of whom would attend the first medical school in Australia that opened its doors to women, in 1890” (359). By using a third-person limited perspective, Kline can access the inner worlds and experiences of specific characters while maintaining a separation that can move beyond the bounds of the immediacy of their present moment. This also applies to the characters’ flashbacks, included when necessary to provide...