Point of View

The story is told from the first-person point of view of protagonist Sequoyah. More specifically, and as the opening paragraphs make clear, it is a story told by an older Sequoyah about his younger self. But while there are moments of perspective and commentary interjected into the narrative by the older Sequoyah, the experiences of the younger Sequoyah are the primary focus. The narrative takes the reader into those experiences without offering a great deal of interpretation – Older Sequoyah offers little explanation for the actions of Younger Sequoyah, letting them speak for themselves and leaving it to the reader to both question, and perhaps come to understand, their meaning and relationship to Sequoyah’s life.

This narrative point of view, that of an older narrator telling a story about his younger self, reflects the novel’s primary thematic point of view, which positions Sequoyah’s...