Point of View

The narration of this story is from the third person limited point of view – from the perspective of central character and protagonist Robert Grainier. The narrative focuses almost entirely on his experiences, reactions and insights as it creates a collage-style portrait of that life. There are diversions from this point of view in the descriptions of events in the lives of other characters. One example of this is the sketching-in of the later life and death of Kootenai Bob, in which the events described do not have a direct bearing on Grainier’s life but do provide a vivid, contrasting echo to choices Grainier made, and experiences Grainier had in both life and death.

In terms of thematic point of view, there are a couple of points to note here. The first relates to how theme interacts with structure to make the point that the...