Point of View

The point of view of Waiting for Eden is first person, but told from an omniscient standpoint as the narrator, being dead, is in a type of afterlife and has access to other’s thoughts and emotions. As the narrator describes it, “since then [the narrator’s death] I’ve been around too, just on that other side, seeing all there is, and waiting” (3). It is clear the narrator (unnamed in this novel) did not possess this enlightened attribute when he was alive. In the novel’s flashbacks, the narrator works, as all humans, by trying to decipher the actions and words of others. For example, he believes Mary when she tells him the child she carries is not his. In the afterlife, the narrator is fully aware he is the father. Having this unique and powerful perspective gives reliability to the narrator; it also...