The “we” of a novel’s first-person plural point of view is often exclusive: it defines and sets apart a group. The “we” appears separate from the rest of the cast, and the only details that matter are the ones the collective voice deems important enough to mention.
Take Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides, where the teenage boys speak as “we” and describe the events of their high school years by way of their obsessive observations about the Lisbon girls. During baseball season, the boys neglect to mention the score, the names of the players, or what the cheerleaders look like, but recall how the Lisbon girls chewed their fists when watching a close game. The only relevant details are those connected to the girls. In Julie Otsuka’s The Swimmers, the devotees of an underground pool cement their in-group status by providing details about the pool, its guests, and those aboveground, the non-swimmers. “There are those who would call our devotion to the pool excessive, if not pathological,” they admit.
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