Point of View

The narrator of The Weight of Ink is a non-exegetic third-person limited narrator. There are three perspectives: the narratives of Helen and Aaron take place in the present, and Ester’s narrative occurs in the seventeenth-century. Their narratives alternate logically, as the historical documents analyzed by Helen and Aaron are given deeper meaning through Ester’s perspective. This allows readers to consume the wealth of historical and personal information provided in each narrative, experiencing a complex mystery with relative ease.

The novel’s character perspectives and thought processes provide particular insight into the dynamic between Helen and Aaron, and the seventeenth-century world Ester lives in. As the narrations of Helen and Aaron alternate, the same events are described in different perspectives; in particular, readers experience both sides of the confrontation in Helen’s office, and the author describes both characters’ initial experience exploring the Easton...