Point of View

The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock uses the third person point of view except for brief italicized interludes that use a first person voice of a mermaid. The first interlude appears on after the first chapter of the novel and has an ambiguous narrative stance, as if the speaker were an omniscient narrator with intimate knowledge of Mr. Hancock. “Somewhere a tide is turning,” Gowar writes, “In that place where no land can be seen, where horizon is horizon is spanned by shifting twinkling faithless water, a wave humps its back and turns over with a sigh, and sends its salted whispering to Mr. Hancock’s ear” (8). Later in the novel, these interludes become more explicitly first person. This one, near the end of the novel, appears to use the voice of the second mermaid. “I have outgrown all the room you gave me – no more...