The Bloody Chamber Lesson Plan

How does the narrator's perspective change over the course of this story? What effect does this shift have on the reader?

The story begins with an omniscient narrator, who describes things and tells us what the Countess thinks and feels, but who seems emotionally distanced and all-knowing. When the character of the British soldier is introduced by the narrator, the perspective shifts so that we see things more as he sees them. We notice the contrast between what we imagined based on the narrator's initial description and the young soldier's perceptions of the same things. It makes us realize we don't know what is real or true; that different people can look at the...