Narrator and point of view

The short story “The Knife Thrower” by Steven Millhauser is told from the first-person point of view of the collective character who is the audience to Hensch’s performance.

The collective narrator can only offer their own interpretation of the events. They do not know what will happen on the stage. This gives the reader the impression that he or she is also one of the audience members, watching events unfold. 

The narrator makes several assumptions about Hensch which may or may not be true. For instance: “It must, we imagined, have galled Hensch to feel himself a freak among freaks; he must have needed a way out. For wasn’t he an artist, in his fashion?” (p. 47, ll. 34-36). This assumption is less about Hensch and more about the image Hensch wants to project in the minds of his audience. This shows that the collective narrator is easy to impress and manipulate. 

As much as the collective narrator appears to think and act as one...