Point of View

The Hundred Days is written in the third person omniscient point of view. This point of view is effective for The Hundred Days because there are several plots playing out at the same time with a fairly large number of characters, so first person would limit the information too much and would probably result in the reader being confused about the intricacies of the plot. The narrator is impersonal and reliable and reveals both the concrete details of the story and the emotions of the characters. For example, readers are told by the narrator that "Captain Vaux was of a wealthy, open-handed family and he dreaded having the appearance of one who owed his early promotion to his connexions (sic)" (Chapter 4, p. 93). Were this not a third person omniscient point of view, the readers would have no way of knowing Captain Vaux's feelings about taking command...