Narrator and point of view

“Owl” by Jackie Key is a first-person narration, told from the perspective of the character-narrator, Anita (nicknamed Barn).

The first-person narrator has limited knowledge on the events; both in the past and the present. She only knows what she saw, what she experienced, and how she felt: “…we actually noticed that Tawny’s father seemed happy chatting to my mother and that my father seemed to laugh in a different way with Tawny’s mother.” (ll. 10-12); “We actually saw Tawny’s father kiss my mum one night when we’d crept out late to watch the night flights of our barn owl.” (ll. 22-23)

The use of the first person plural helps the author suggest that a division between her and Tawny, and the rest of the world formed. It was them versus their parents, them versus Sandra, them versus the world.

However, the narrator has limited knowledge on what Tawny feels and thinks. She only has access to what Tawny tells her: “ ‘After a while, I don’t think you connect any name to anything any more. It just is,’ Tawn said. She had this way of explaining everything so that everything made perfect sense.” (ll. 142...