ty painted by Oe, it is not likely that the author concludes that Bird's life will necessarily be a happy one because of that decision. If Oe does indeed believe that such a happy life will result, then he has betrayed the character of Bird and the portrait of society he has painted.
The point of view of the novel is that of an omniscient narrator with the ability and willingness to describe what he sees with comic and tragic power, sometimes in the same sentence. The reader does not know whether to laugh or cry or wince at these startling and moving juxtapositions, as in this passage in which Bird first sees his malformed baby:
Its head was no longer in bandages like the wounded Apollinaire. . . . The baby's complexion was as red as a boiled shrimp and abnormally lustrous; his face glistened as if it were covered with scar tissue from a newly healed burn. . . . [The baby's] discomfort was due to the lump that jutted, there was no denying it, like anothe
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