POINT-OF-VIEW
Point-of-view is a writer’s tool; it defines character, tone, narrative limitations, time and space. An event occurs: how it is told, and by whom, depends entirely upon point-of-view. How does this character know this story? Is this character telling the truth? Is the narrative voice privy to the character’s thoughts and emotions, yet not bound to the character’s vocabulary? When is the character telling this story? -- as the event is occurring? A few minutes after? ten, twenty, thirty, eighty years later? Distance from an event contributes dramatically to the flavoring, the depth, the nuance of any telling. Remember that point-of-view is the most artificial of the storytelling tools: through the “voice” the writer achieves a “willing suspension of disbelief.”(Samuel Taylor Coleridge) How successful a writer is in convincing her reader to believe her, how complete the illusion she casts will be, all depend upon the unity created by a logical andconsistent point-of-view.
By maintaining a consistent point-of-view the writer achieves an Aristotelian unity and authority.
Please note:
1st person is no more intimate that 3rd person.
The following are the basic established viewpoints and some examples:
FIRST PERSON Present (I)
The narrator in the first person point-of-view is “I.” Nothing not known by “I” – or told to “I,” or read by “I,” etc. – can be introduced into the narrative, logically. Present tense is normally used to emphasize current action, i.e., running the rapids of a river, a car-chase, stalking a monster in your bedroom. Present tense does not easily accommodate reflection, exposition, flashbacks, or other not action-oriented modes.
eg: A woman I don’t knowis boiling[1] tea the Indian way in my kitchen. There are a lot of women I don’t know in my kitchen, whispering, and moving tactfully. They open doors, rummage through the pantry, and try not to ask me where things are kept. They remind me of when my sons were small, on Mother’s Day or when Vikram and I were tired, and they would make big, sloppy omelets. I would lie in bed pretending I didn’t hear them.
(Bharati Mukherjee, "The Management of Grief,” The Middleman and other Stories, Grove Press, 1988.)
RECOMMENDED READINGS:
FIRST PERSON Past (I)
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Point-of-View...
First person past tense is perhaps the oldest and most classic form of story-telling. Simply imagine sitting around a fire and recounting what happened to you once upon a time. Distance from the action can be a powerful tool, allowing for more and more reflection and understanding on the part of the narrator.
eg.: I read about it in the paper, in the subway, on my way to work. I read it, and I couldn’t believe it, and I read it again. Then perhaps I just stared at it, at the newsprint spelling out his name, spelling out the story. I stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside.
(James Baldwin, “Sonny's Blues,”Going to Meet the Man, 1966.)
RECOMMENDED READINGS:
FIRST PERSON Past Plural (we)
A good way to think of this mode of story-telling is to consider a community telling the story, or a group of friends, or a family. The knowledge is limited to what the group knows. In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, The Autumn of the Patriarch, “we” is a nation. In “The Virgin Suicides” the “we” is a small cadre of young male witnesses.
eg.: For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust.
Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.
(William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily,” The Collected Stories of William Faulkner, 1950.)
RECOMMENDED READINGS:
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SECOND PERSON Present (you)
This mode of story-telling tends to be a stylistic risk. It hollers artificiality and calls attention to itself, yet it has been used effectively since the 19th Century. Many readers mistake the “you” in the first person as a direct address to the reader. The “you” in the second person story is the main character, the same as “I” or “She.” Writers chose to write in the second person for atmospheric reasons: ghostly, disquieting, distancing, etc.
eg.: You’re reading the advertisement: an offer like this isn’t made every day. You read it and reread it. It seems to be addressed to you and nobody else. You don’t even notice when the ash from your cigarette falls into the cup of tea you ordered in this cheap, dirty cafe. You read it again.
(Carlos Fuentes, Aura, Noonday/Farrar, Straus, 1965,1975.)
RECOMMENDED READINGS:
[A rare exception: When the book is actually addressing the reader: Note Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler, (HBJ, 1979) where the source of the “voice” is the book itself, rather than an internal character: ]
eg.: You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the room. Tell the others right away, “No, I don’t want to watch TV!” Raise your voice -- they won’t hear you otherwise -- “I’m reading! I don’t want to be disturbed!” Maybe they haven’t heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: “I’m beginning Italo Calvino’s new novel!” Or if you prefer, don’t say anything; just hope they’ll leave you alone.]
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Point-of-View...
THIRD PERSON Past Limited [or Dramatic] (he, she, they)
This mode is very like watching a play. We only see. We don’t know what anyong is thinking. This narrative strategy is best suited for visual stories, and stories that wish to maintain the mystery of what our characters could be thinking.
eg.: The two benches in the waiting room were occupied by a pair of women waiting for the first early-morning train on the branch line. The last train on the main line had departed for the night. Belatedly, a tall, thin man came into the room. He had thick eyebrows and closely-cropped hair and was wearing a snug sport shirt.
(Kobo Abe, “Beguiled,” Beyond the Curve, Kodansha, 1991.)
RECOMMENDED READINGS:
THIRD PERSON Past Omniscient Limited [Or Third Person Objective] (he, she, they)
This mode is most common among contemporary novels and has been for most of the 20th Century. Essentially the same rules apply as for the 1st person as regards having a central character (the same as “I,” but in this case “he/she.”) One consciousness to rule and define and shape the story.
eg.: Her first name was India -- she was never able to get used to it. It seemed to her that her parents must have been thinking of someone else when they named her. Or were they hoping for another sort of daughter? As a child she was often on the point of inquiring, but time passed, and she never did.
( Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge, 1959.)
RECOMMENDED READINGS:
THIRD PERSON Past Omniscient (he, she, they) [UNLIMITED]
The voice of God. No limits on knowledge and mental intrusion. This mode is perhaps the most ancient (e.g. The Bible). This mode is more about the narrative voice and the story than any individual character, and is the predominant point-of-view for the 19th Century novel. Modernism has made this mode questionable for latter-day readers and writers, though it is making a fleeting return.
eg.: That year, it began to rain on the twenty-fourth of May -- a holiday still called, some thirty years after her death, Queen Victoria’s Birthday. It rained -- this was Canada -- until the middle of June. The girls, kept indoors, exercising listlessly in the gym, quarreling over nothing, and complained of headache. Between showers they walked along spongy gravel paths, knocking against spiraea bushed that suddenly spattered them with water and white. It was the last lap of term, the dead period between the end of exams and the start of freedom. Handicrafts and extra art classes were improvised to keep them busy, but it was hopeless; glooming over their desks, they quarreled, dreamed of summer, wrote plaintive letters home. Their raincoats were suddenly hot and heavy, their long black stocking scratchy and damp.
(Mavis Gallant, “Thank You for the Lovely Tea,” Home Truths, Random House, 1981.)
RECOMMENDED READINGS:
George Elliot, Middlemarch
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** FREE INDIRECT DISCOURSE **
This mode of expression was made famous by the modernist writers who were at the same time experimenting with stream-of-consciousness (See below). A free and direct narrative begins in a classical third-person mode, and strategically shifts to a character’s internal thoughts from time to time and for various lengths of time. The third person narrative voice normally asserts itself throughout the story proper.
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Point-of-View...
STREAM-OF-CONSCIOUSNESS
The Stream-of-Consciousness point-of-view is not merely rambling or confusion. IT actually mirrors the way we thing: Free association. Though a stream-of-consciousness narrative dates back to St. Augustine (See: The Confessions), this pattern was defined by the psychologist William James in The Principles of Psychology (1890). (“…consciousness, then, does not appear to itself as chopped up in bits ... it is nothing joined; it flows. A 'river' or a 'stream' are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let's call it the stream of thought, consciousness, or subjective life.”). Jung once described the patterns of free association as “daisy petals.”
This mode was made popular by the early twentieth century modernists: William Faulkner, Marcel Proust, Virginia Wolfe, James Joyce, etc.
eg.: Light flashed on herclosed eyelids, and a deep roaring shook her. Cornelia, is that lightning? I hear thunder. There’s going to be a storm. Close all the windows. Call the children in... “Mother, here we are, all of us.” “Is that you, Hapsy?” “Oh, no, I’m Lydia. We drove as fast as we could.” Their faces drifted above her, drifted away. The rosary fell out of her hands and Lydia put it back. Jimmy tried to help, their hands fumbled together, and Granny closed two fingers around Jimmy’s thumb. Beads wouldn’t do, it must be something alive. She was so amazed her thoughts ran round and round. [SHIFT]So, my dear Lord, this is my death andI wasn’t even thinking about it. My children have come to see me die. But I can’t, it’s not time. Oh, I always hated surprises. I wanted to give Cornelia the amethyst set – Cornelia, you’re to have the amethyst set, but Hapsy’s to wear it when she wants, and, Doctor Harry, do shut up. Nobody sent for you. Oh, my dear Lord, do wait a minute. I meant to do something about the Forty Acres, Jimmy doesn’t need it and Lydia will later on, with that worthless husband of hers. I meant to finish the altar cloth and send six bottles of wine to Sister Borgia for her dyspepsia. I want to send six bottles of wine to Sister Borgia, Father Connolly, now don’t let me forget.
(Katherine Anne Porter, “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,”The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, 1969.)
RECOMMENDED READINGS:
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REMEMBER: I=YOU=WE=S(HE)=THEY...
Point-of-View is all an illusion, a magician’s tool.
Always ask: Where is the Voice coming from?
//rgk.1.16.2016
Italics added for emphasis