The narrative voice.

This story is in the ‘third person’ that is, the narrator is not a participant in the story. But the narrator often seems to tell the story from the point of view of one of the characters in the story. For example, look at the Italianized words in the sentences.

Thank goodness, she did not live up on Boggins Heights or have a funny name.

Whose thoughts do the words ‘Thank goodness’ express? Maddie’s, who is grateful that although she is poor, she is yet not as poor as Wanda, or as ‘different’. (So she does not get teased; she is thankful about that.)

A. Here are two other sentences from the story. Can you say whose point of view the italicized words express?

(i) But on Wednesday, Peggy and Maddie, who sat down front with other children who got good marks and who didn’t track in a whole lot of mud, did notice that Wanda wasn’t there.

(ii) Wanda Petronski. Most of the children in Room Thirteen didn’t have names like that. They had names easy to say, like Thomas, Smith or Allen.