Point of View

The Town of Babylon is written from multiple points of view. The majority of the chapters are written from the protagonist Andrés’s first person vantage point. Andrés’s chapters are then interspersed with chapters written from the third person point of view. The latter chapters present more omniscient and unbiased accounts of the secondary characters’ backstories and family histories. By alternating between these contrasting points of view, the author is able to sustain and protract the narrative tension from the narrative present. This approach to point of view also enacts the author’s overarching explorations concerning the relationship between one’s past experiences and one’s identity in the present.

The author introduces the reader to his first person narrator Andrés’s narrative voice within the first page of Chapter 1, “Sidewalks.” After Andrés reads the announcement for his twentieth high...