Point of View

The novel is written from the third person point of view. The narrator, however, remains closest to Sammar's perspective throughout, inhabiting the intimate facets of her life and consciousness. The author establishes this intimacy between the narrator and protagonist in the opening lines of the Chapter 1. The novel begins: "She dreamt that it rained and she could not go out to meet him as planned...And the anxiety that she was keeping him waiting pervaded the dream, gave it an urgency that was astringent to grief" (3). Even before the reader learns Sammar's name, or the identity of the person about whom she is dreaming, the author describes the intimate details of her dream life, and the anxieties associated with it. This nearly inextricable relationship between narrator and protagonist continues throughout the novel. The third person narrator, therefore, has access to the most vulnerable aspects of...