Why does the author tell the story through Cathy's point of view?

Question

Cathy hadn't expected this many people to attend. She was teaching her first yoga class today. She grew nervous as what seemed like a thousand faces stared at her waiting for the class to begin, waiting for instruction. At that moment, Cathy remembered the first yoga class she had ever taken. The room was warm and lined with experienced yogis. The instructor was tall with long, brown hair. He told her to do the best that she could and not to compare herself to others in the class. But that was too hard to do! She felt intimidated by the flexibility and endurance of the other students who flowed in and out of postures with ease. She had to look around to figure out what to do and often fell over while other students stood straight and strong. She felt so lost! But by the end of that first class, she had fallen in love with yoga. Now she was a teacher standing in front of her own class of beginners. She was excited to help people learn to love yoga just as she had learned to love it. Cathy took a deep breath and was finally ready to begin. "Reach up to the sky with a slight arch in the back," she instructed. The class complied, and Cathy tingled with excitement. This was the beginning of a wonderful new journey!

Answer 1

Asking why an author does anything is always going to be guesswork, because no one but the author could really tell you! Your best course of action is to make a guess that has good evidence. In this case, you could look at what the author was able to do because they told the story through Cathy's point of view. The author was able to write about Cathy's personal background and show how her experience with her own first yoga class influences her emotions as she starts teaching yoga to beginners. If the story was from the point of view of one of the students in the class, then we would probably get to know more about how that student felt. If the story was from a third person point of view, then we would not know how anyone felt and it would probably be pretty boring. So you can make the guess that the author wrote this from Cathy's point of view because it provided interesting background and emotion to an otherwise simple yoga class scene.