Narrator and point of view

The short story “Baglady” by A. S. Byatt is told from the point of view of a third-person narrator. 

The story follows the perspective of the main character, Daphne Gulver-Robinson, so the narrator is limited. The readers only have access to Daphne’s thoughts and feelings. 

The narrator makes several assumptions about the other characters. While they may be true, they also reveal Daphne’s own fears and biases. For instance, she assumes the policeman looks at her and sees “a baglady, dirty, unkempt, with a bag full of somebody’s shopping, a tattered battery-hen” (p. 12, ll. 34-35). This assumption is supported by the policeman’s previous statement (p. 12, l. 33), but it also highlights Daphne’s own complex of inferiority, her fear that she does not...