Narrator and point of view

The short story “We Can’t Be Good at Everything” by Emma Sloley is told from the point of view of a third-person narrator. The story is told entirely from the main character’s perspective, so the narrator is limited.

All the events and characters in the story are seen through Miles’s point of view. Therefore, the narrator makes several assumptions about the other characters that may or may not be true. For instance, Miles assumes William is very attached to Fenella: “naturally the little boy loves her with a single-minded madness. She is like one of his fairytales come to life, a swashbuckling adventurer and fairy queen rolled into one.” (ll. 37-39). But this might just reflect Miles’s own perspective on Fenella. 

The narrator presents Miles’s thou...