Narrator and point of view

The short story “Pride and Joy” written by Philippa East is told by a third-person narrator who confines himself to the perspective of Mrs Jacks.

The narrator has limited knowledge when it comes to the other characters but unlimited knowledge when it comes to Mrs Jacks. For instance, the narrator does not know what Billy, Meg, or the fat man and his wife think about and we only get to know something about them through the way Mrs Jacks sees them.

The narrator knows what Mrs Jacks feels once she is in the garden shop: “In their presence, Mrs Jacks felt an easing, a sense of possibility. Billy was safe, of course he was – what harm could come to him, eating cake just over the way?” (ll. 96-97). The quotation also indicates that the rhetorical...

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