The protagonist is a young woman called Luz but the story is told in the third person and the reader sees events from the point of view of several different characters.

The Eye of the Heron is usually treated as one of Le Guin's minor novels although it exhibits her characteristic prose style and themes.

The City "Bosses" do not want to lose the control they believe they have over the Shanty Towners and so they take action to try to prevent any settlement beyond their sphere of influence.

The novel also explores different forms of social and political organization by juxtaposing pacifist anarchism with violent oligarchy.

When asked, in a 1995 interview, what role the feminist movement had played in her writing, Le Guin situated The Eye of the Heron in the context of her development as a writer: I gradually realized that my own fiction was telling me that I could no longer ignore the feminine.