Point of View

The River Bank is told using a third-person, limited-omniscient narrator. More specifically, the narrator changes "orientation" to focus on a certain main character with each new chapter of the novel, a technique that is used to create and build suspense. For instance, the tenth chapter, "Cribbed, Cabined, and Confined" focuses on the character of Rabbit: "Rabbit settled down to listening for whatever she might hear through the cracked and slatted walls, though it was little enough: low talk and rude laughter" (149). This perspective creates a moment of suspense when, unbeknownst to Rabbit -- and thus also the reader -- Mole and Beryl arrive on the scene: "There was a noise by the tack room's back wall, as though a tree limb were knocking against it, and then there was a voice. It was the Mole" (169).

This same technique is also utilized to create suspense around...