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“Story of Your Life” is framed as a mother’s address to her daughter in which she tells her daughter the story of her daughter’s life. Louise, the mother, maintains a first-person point of view during this narrative but also uses the pronoun “you” to indicate she is speaking to her daughter. More broadly, Louise’s point of view in this context is special. Having become proficient in Heptapod B, Louise “sees” the entirety of her life from the time she learns the heptapod languages until her death. Louise also knows every moment of her daughter’s life, from birth to death, owing to the sad fact that her daughter dies tragically at age 25. Thanks to Heptapod B, Louise does not see her daughter’s life as a linear progression from infancy to adulthood and death. Rather, Louise sees her daughter’s life as a single and complete picture. She thus imparts this point of view to the readers by telling the story nonchronologically. The mechanics of English and the human mind dictate that Louise must tell her story in some sort of order. However, the unique point of view she employs in the narration is the next best thing to the way Louise would prefer to express it, as a beautifully complex semagram in Heptapod B.

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