Narrative Point of View

Point of View It is how the author has chosen to go about telling his story Also known as ‘narrative stance’ or ‘narrative technique’

Point of View It is used (associated) in an everyday sense as the equivalent of ‘attitudes’ or ‘opinions’. Example: What is your point of view on wage-indexation? What is your pint of view about what happened?

Point of View Choosing which narrative ‘point of view’ or ‘points of view’ to adopt in telling his story is one of the fundamental decisions an author has to make. An authors choice of narrative point of view is every bit as important as his choice of words and diction. -his choice of words and diction might even depend on his chosen point(s) of view

Basic types of NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE

‘FIRST-PERSON’ NARRATION In first-person narration, the story- teller usually invents and then impersonates a character who tells his own story ‘from his point of view’ referring to himself throughout as ‘I’.

Ironic Impersonation This happens when the author’s opinions are actually not being voiced out by the invented ‘first person’ but are actually the opposite of what is being portrayed by the character. A hint of sarcasm would be of help for the reader/audience to know if the author is employing this ironic impersonation’.

‘THIRD-PERSON’ NARRATION In third-person narration the author does not assume the guise of a fictional character, but remains outside the narrative, referring to the fictional characters in the third person as ‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘they’.

Intrusive Authors Authors that sometimes intervenes (in third-person narratives) to make direct comments to the reader, referring to himself as ‘I’ Such intrusive comments have been regarded as highly undesirable by some of the best twentieth- century novelists such as D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce --as they spoil the supposed reader’s reflection about the story/literary piece

From George Eliot’s “Middlemarch” Example: If you think it incredible that to imagine a Lydgate as a man of family could cause thrills of satisfaction which had anything to do with the sense that she was in love with him, I will ask you to use your power of comparison a little more effectively, and consider whether red cloth and epaulets have never had an influence of that sort. Our passions do not live apart in locked chambers…

Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” Browning’s “The Ring and the Book” A collection of stories presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel from Southwark to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. (wikipedia) Employs a series of first-person narrators who give their own very different accounts of the central event in which they are all involved. Employing more than one narrator

‘Direct Interior Monologues and the ‘Epistolary Novel’ Both can only be employed in first-person narration. Direct Interior Monologues -the author seems not to exist and the interior self of the character is given directly, as though the reader were overhearing an articulation of the stream of thought and feeling flowing through the character's mind. (Grammar and Composition)

‘Direct Interior Monologues and the ‘Epistolary Novel’ Both can only be employed in first-person narration. Epistolary Novel -novel written in without authorial comment in the form of letters between the characters involved -The use of letters is itself no more than a convention which gives the fictional characters the opportunity to voice their deepest personal feelings and thoughts. Example: Stephen Chbosky’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”

Radical experiment(s) in point of view Alternating Person: Many stories, especially in literature, alternate between the first and third person. In this case, an author will move back and forth between a more omniscient third-person narrator to a more personal first-person narrator. (writeworld) Example: Charles Dickens’ Bleak House -alternates between a third –person narrator writing in the present tense, and that of a first-person narrator writing in the past tense

Presentation of ACTIONS, SPEECH, and THOUGHTS in stories Actions may be presented in greater or less detail. Speech Direct Speech- speech presented in the form of the actual words which the fictional characters alleged to have spoken. Example: ‘You begin to comprehend me do you?’ cried he, turning towards her. ‘O! yes-I understand you perfectly.’ --use of quotation marks “ ” or ‘ ’

Presentation of ACTIONS, SPEECH, and THOUGHTS in stories Indirect Speech (Reported Speech) -speech is presented by giving the actual words of the characters as they are alleged to have been spoken, but changes the grammatical person of the subject and the grammatical sense of the verb. Example: When I told the clerk that I would take a turn in the air while I waited, he advised me to go round the corner and I should come in Smithfield.

Presentation of ACTIONS, SPEECH, and THOUGHTS in stories Speech presented in the form of Summary or Paraphrase- The gist of the an alleged conversation may be given in a few lines by the author, or it may be given in a still more compressed form. Example: A dispute arose on this occasion concerning evidence not very necessary to be related here; after which the surgeon dressed Mr. Joseph’s head, still persisting in the imminent danger in which his patient lay…

Presentation of ACTIONS, SPEECH, and THOUGHTS in stories Thoughts may be presented in many different ways, but a useful analogy may be made between the main ways in which speech is presented and the main ways in which though is presented. Direct Interior Monologues- presents us with thoughts of the character exactly as he is alleged to have thought them. Example: Can it be that I, Stephen Dedalus, had done these things? His conscience sighed in answer. Yes, I have done them, secretly, filthily, time after time…

Presentation of ACTIONS, SPEECH, and THOUGHTS in stories Narrated Interior Monologues- the actual thoughts of the character are presented, but rendered in the third person and the past tense as happens in indirect speech Example: Could it be that he, Stephen Dedalus, had done these things? His conscience sighed in answer. Yes, he had done them, secretly, filthily, time after time…

Presentation of ACTIONS, SPEECH, and THOUGHTS in stories Thoughts presented in Summaries and Paraphrases of GREATER or LESS Detail Example: The prudent waiting-gentlewoman had duly weighed the whole matter, and found, on mature deliberation, that a good place in possession was better than one in expectation.

Distance This refers to the degree of sympathy or antipathy which the reader is invited to feel towards a particular character or characters A character exists only in a way in which the author presents him to us, and the degree of sympathy which we are invited to feel through the control and manipulation of distance plays a highly important part in the moral evaluations of personality and conduct being put forward by the author.

A detailed and fully developed internal presentation which depicts the fictional character’s alleged inner thoughts and feelings is likely to make the reader sympathize and identify with him or her. A mainly unsympathetic character is usually an externally presented one, one whose alleged inner thoughts and feelings we are not allowed to share.

References s s ook ook Monologue.htm Monologue.htm