sentence ending と for third person narrators

Question

通常なら流せる発言も、あるいは飲み込める怒りも、慣れない自給自足の生活でささくれだった神経では不可能になる人間がいるのだと。

context is about a group of people, trapped in the wilderness for a while.

To be able to talk normally, or to to be able hold back anger, due to this unaccustomed self-sufficient lifestyle, their nerves deteriorated, things are like that became impossible for some of them.

彼女の心のどこかに、歪んだ贖罪の心がわき起こる。こんなになってしまった先生を受け容れるのが、私に出来る数少ない贖罪の方法なのではないかと。

Marginally related to the first context

...To accept this disheveled sensei’s demands, would one of the few ways she can atone for her sins right?

Speaker a 3rd person narrator of the story for both sentences. Is this just to express a degree of uncertainy as if the narrator only thinking "___" is the case? The narrator is omniscient, is this just to tease the reader?

Answer 1

The first one (人間がいるのだと) is probably an example of 倒置法 ("hyperbaton"), the use of reversed word order for a dramatic effect. You should be able to find the verb that corresponds to this quotative-と in the previous context (考え直した, 気づいた, etc). Brackets are often omitted like this in Japanese even when direct speech is used. と is an explicit quotation marker, so there is nothing wrong if the third person narrator uses it.

• Ending sentences with "、と。"
• Direct and indirect quotes

The second one (贖罪の方法なのではないかと), it's still a quotative-と, and it explains something in the previous sentence. It can be rephrased as:

彼女の心のどこかに、「こんなになってしまった先生を受け容れるのが、私に出来る数少ない贖罪の方法なのではないか」という、歪んだ贖罪の心がわき起こる。

Or you may think 思った/感じた is omitted after this と.