Point of View

The short story “The Man Who Hugged Women” is a third person narrative. The narrator’s voice is connected to Freya, so the reader knows the story through her perspective. She is a viewpoint character, i.e. we have access to her thoughts and ideas and we can relate to her experience. As the story develops, we learn about Freya’s loneliness, about the influence her father had on her and about the insecurities and frustrations connected to her marriage.

The third person narrative associated with Freya makes us tend to sympathise with her more than we sympathise with Pearl, although the latter’s problems are not trivial matters. Through Freya’s perspective, we learn that their friendship goes long back. A specific event connects the two even mor...