Point of View

Point of view refers to the perspective from which a story is told. Bowles uses a first-person point of view in "The Eye," meaning that readers see events through the narrator's eyes. This narrator, the "I" in the story, is never named, but through information he provides the readers know that he is also an expatriate and a long-time resident of Tangier. First-person narrators can be either central to the action or peripheral to it. Bowles's narrator is somewhere in between. He acts as a detective, seeking out information about Duncan Marsh's death, initiates contact with Larbi, and comments on the story that Larbi tells about Marsh. However, he is not a participant in Marsh's story itself and never even met the man.

Setting

Setting refers to the time, place, and culture in which the action of a story takes place. "The Eye" is set in...