Elements of Fiction- Point of view
How important is the person who tells the story when determining the meaning?
Would you be more likely to “believe” a story told by a person who is an eyewitness or by someone who “saw it on the Internet?”
How about a story told by a grandparent in comparison to one told by your “crazy cousin?”
Obviously, the narrator’s status has a significant impact on the reader’s perspective on the story. Think about the narrator in Bartleby. How trustworthy was he?
Types of narrators
Third-Person Narrator- not a character in the story, but very much has the potential to affect our understanding.
Omniscient narrator- the all-knowing narrator who has the ability to transcend all boundaries of the real world, passing between time and place and the thoughts of characters.
Editorial omniscience-allows for the narrator to provide a judgment of the characters and/or the actions or thoughts of characters.
Neutral omniscience-free of evaluative observations.
Limited omniscient narrator-variable in nature, but the narrator only reveals the thoughts and motivations of a single character, or very few characters.
Stream of Consciousness Technique-fairly modern technique where the reader seems to be experiencing every conscious thought of the character. See page 220.
Objective point of view- Literally, the narrator only allows for the objective reporting of events, where interpretations are reliant on only dialogue and actions of the characters.
First-Person Narrator- one character’s conscious thoughts and reporting.
Unreliable narrator- a narrator who can’t be trusted to provide the reader with a completely truthful or representative observation. Bartleby’s lawyer is a good example.
Naïve narrator- a narrator who does not have the experience or maturity to accurately interpret the events in a story. Huck Finn and Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird are examples of this.
The importance of the point of view can’t be understated when trying to determine the author’s intent. Perhaps one of the first choices an author must make when writing a story, the choice of the type of point of view will be significant to the revelation of information to the reader. Thus, we must carefully examine the reliability of information revealed by the narrator.
Another reason to identify the point of view is to understand the relationship of the author to the narrator. How the narrative voice is portrayed will give us further insight into the intent of the author.
Assignment- Read Anton Chekhov’s, “The Lady with the Pet Dog”, page 235, paying special attention to how the point of view allows us to understand the character of Gustav and his conflict with his changing emotions.