What is the point of view in "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses" by Irwin Shaw?

Point of view, of course, is the standpoint from which the
story is told: "who tells the story and how it is told." It is important to note what a
narrator does.

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The person telling the story who may or may not
be a character in the
story.

First-person point of
view is when a story is told using the pronoun "I" as the reader hears the thoughts of
the narrator/speaker. In this case, the person sharing his or her thoughts is part of
the story's action. What this character sees and/or knows is limited to what the
narrator knows and observes.

With second-person point of
view, the narrator speaks directly to the reader, as if the reader was a part of the
story taking place at that
moment.

Another popular point of view used by many authors
is third-person. This is when a tale is told from the perspective of an unidentified
narrator, or a character in the story, and the pronouns used are
"he, she, it, they," etc. There are two kinds of third-person point of views:
objective and omniscient. The objective point
of view almost speaks for itself: the narrator is an observer, does not take part in the
story, and reports what is apparent to an "observer." This point of view does
not guide the thoughts of the reader at
all.

Omniscient point of view refers to the narrator who is
"all-knowing." The thoughts and feelings, as well as the actions, of multiple characters
may be expressed by the narrator. It is not uncommon that this narrator may "shadow" a
character for several pages or even a chapter, and then switch to do the same with
another character. The third-person omniscient narrator may "evaluate" a character "in
some meaningful way."

In Irwin Shaw's "The Girls in Their
Summer Dresses," the point of view is third-person objective. The narrator simply
reports what is noticeable to anyone observing the couple. A device that the author uses
to share the character's ideas (other than having the character speak about them in the
story) is to have a character speak as if he or she were speaking to him- or
herself:

"I
try not to notice it," Frances said, as though she were talking to herself. "I try to
make believe it doesn't mean
anything.

Another tell-tale
characteristic of third-person objective is that the narrator never provides commentary
on the character's actions. We are left to analyze them as each character speaks (or
acts), drawing our own conclusions.