Under a War-Torn Sky

Point of view refers to the perspective from which a story is told. In this case, it is told by a limited third-person narrator. The narrator knows about the thoughts, feelings, actions and motivation of a limited number of characters, often just one, as in this case. The viewpoint character is Henry, and everything is seen through his eyes or through his memories. Other characters are known only by what they say and do and what Henry thinks and observes about them. The third-person narrator can be recognized by the use of the pronouns “he,” “she,” and “they” to refer to the characters, instead of a first-person “I.”

The author includes many French and German words, phrases, and sentences, almost always as direct speech. Usually in popular fiction, phrases in a foreign language would be translated in parentheses immediately after they occur, but L. M. Elliott does not translate them. Instead, in the narrative and dialogue that follow, the general meaning of the words is conveyed, although not an actual word-for-word translation. Henry, who does not have much French, sometimes expresses initial puzzlement before figuring out the meaning from facial expression,