Point of View

The storyline of The Pillars of the Earth is conveyed through a third-person narrative style, yet the point of view is completely confined to the characters in the book. Despite the novel being a historical-fiction period piece, there is no historical narrator. The reader sees all events through the present-moment point of view of the major characters. This is an interesting choice by the author, and helps keep the reader personally involved with the characters as by necessity the characters' points of view cannot reach beyond their own immediate experience. The protagonists are defined by the author by the fact that only their points of view are seen first-hand. The story alternates between Tom Builder's, Prior Philip's, Jack Jackson's, and Aliena's points of view. Although Ellen is a major character, the story is never presented from her viewpoint; the reader is left to gauge her strictly...