Point of View

The Late Americans is written from the third person point of view. This third person narration, however, is not omniscient. In each chapter of the novel, the narrator shifts her attention from one character to the next, alternately inhabiting each of their consciousnesses and psyches. This means that in Chapter 1, "The Late Americans," for example, when the narrator is presenting Seamus's experiences, she is depicting the narrative world according to how he sees and interprets it. Therefore, when the narrator makes declarative remarks such as "no one had a happy childhood" or "No one had a good life," such notions are not representative of the narrator's viewpoints (24). Rather, these moments originate from Seamus's consciousness but are presented through the filter of the third person narration. This approach to point of view grants the reader access to the characters' internal worlds, while simultaneously enacting their separation...