Point of view (literature)
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- For perspective in grammar, see grammatical person.
In literature and storytelling, a point of view is the related experience of the narrator — not that of the author. Authors rarely, in fiction, insert or inject their own voice, as this challenges the suspension of disbelief. Texts encourage the reader to identify with the narrator, not with the author.
Literary narration can occur from the first-person, or third-person point of view. In a novel, the first person is commonly used: "I saw, We did,", etc. In an encyclopedia or textbook narrators often work in the third-person: "that happened, the king died", etc. For additional vagueness, imprecision, and detachment, some writers employ the passive voice: "it is said that the president was compelled to be heard...".
The ability to use viewpoints effectively provides one measure of someone's writing ability. The writing markschemes used for National Curriculum assessments in England reflect this: they encourage the awarding of marks for the use of viewpoint as part of a wider judgment regarding the composition and effect of the text.
Most novels are narrated either in the first person, in "third person omniscient", or in "third person limited". A third person omniscient narrator can shift focus from character to character with knowledge of everyone's thoughts and of events of which no single character would be aware. The third person limited point of view picks one character and follows him or her around for the duration of the book. The narrator may be more observant than the character, but is limited to what that one character could theoretically observe. In a minor variant on third person limited, narrator may "travel" with a single character, but the point-of-view conventions may be extended to allow the narrator access to other characters' thoughts and motivations. Another common variant is for a novel to have different third person limited point of views in different sections. Thus, Chapter One might follow Jane, while Chapter Two follows Dick, and Chapter Three follows their dog.
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[edit] Third Person
[edit] Third person, limited
This style of narrator is similar to the first person narrator, except for the notable use of the third person pronouns, he, she and it. The plot centers on a protagonist and covers only that with which the character is involved. But this character is not the narrator. The narrator is disembodied. It does nothing, casts no judgments, expresses no opinions and has no physical form in or out of the story. This narrator is privy to the thoughts, feelings, and memories of the protagonist, but of no other characters.
Example:
- "Stephen closed his eyes and held out in the air his trembling hand with the palm upwards. He felt the prefect of studies touch it for a moment at the fingers to straighten it and then the swish of the sleeve of the soutane as the pandybat was lifted to strike." A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. The narrative is limited to the experiences of Stephen Dedalus.
A way to think of the third person narrator is as a camera peering over the shoulder of the protagonist, recording what transpires for the reader. This point of view is very similar to the first person point of view, but it allows information in a way not possible in the first person. This narrator can present details encountered, but not noticed by the protagonist. It can make observations that the protagonist would never make about himself, like the color of his eyes, or his personal failings. Any such details made by the narrator about itself would be highly dubious, but when given by the third person narrator, should be trusted. The narrator doesn't make blatant judgments; some subjective observations can seep in, but if the reader ever doubts or disagrees with the judgments of the narrator, she will dismiss the work as a whole. The third person narrator is inherently trustworthy.
Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow remains in third person throughout, but at various times, it is third-person limited inside the mind of a particular character, and not always a sane one. For example, in one chapter, we have an extremely unreliable third-person narrator describing an entire ship that is somehow the "toilet" of the German Navy; the effective point of view is that of minor character Horst Achtfaden, locked in the toilet of a ship and going crazy.
[edit] Third person, omniscient
An omniscient narrator, as in more limited third-person forms, is also disembodied; it takes no actions and has no physical form in or out of the story. But, being omniscient, it witnesses all events, even some that no characters witness. The omniscient narrator is privy to all things past, present and future - as well as the thoughts of all characters. As such, an omniscient narrator offers the reader a birds-eye view about the story. The story can focus on any character at any time and on events where there is no character. The third-person omniscient narrator is usually the most reliable narrator; however, the omniscient narrator may offer judgments and express opinions on the behavior of the characters. This was common in the 19th century, as seen in the works of Jane Austen, Nikolai Tolstoy or George Eliot. In some unusual cases, the reliability and impartiality of the narrator may be in question.
[edit] Third person, objective
The author doesn't enter a single mind, but instead records what can be seen and heard. This type of narrator is like a camera or a fly on the wall.
[edit] First person
First person narration is used somewhat less frequently. The first-person point of view sacrifices omniscience and omnipresence for a greater intimacy with one character. It allows the reader to see what the focus character is thinking; it also allows that character to be further developed through his or her own style in telling the story. First-person narrations may be told like third person ones; on the other hand, the narrator may be conscious of telling the story to a given audience, perhaps even at a given place and time, for a given reason. In extreme cases, the first-person narration may be told as a story within a story, with the narrator appearing as a character in the frame story.
In a first person narrative, the narrator is a character in the story. This character takes actions, makes judgments and has opinions and biases. In this case the narrator gives and withholds information based on its own viewing of events. It is an important task for the reader to determine as much as possible about the character of the narrator in order to decide what "really" happens. This type of narrator is usually noticeable for its ubiquitous use of the first-person pronoun, "I". Example:
- "I could picture it. I have a rotten habit of picturing the bedroom scenes of my friends. We went out to the Cafe Napolitain to have an aperitif and watch the evening crowd on the Boulevard." from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. The narrator is protagonist Jake Barnes.
The narrator can be the protagonist (e.g., Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels), someone very close to him, who is privy to his thoughts and actions (Dr. Watson in Sherlock Holmes), or an ancillary character who has little to do with the action of the story (Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby). A narrator can even be a character relating the story second-hand, such as Lockwood in Wuthering Heights.
The first person narrator is the type most obviously distinct from the author. It is a character in the work, who must follow all of the rules of being a character, even during its duties as narrator. For it to know anything, it must experience it with its senses, or be told about it. It can interject its own thoughts and opinions, but not those of any other character, unless clearly told about those thoughts.
In autobiographical fiction, the first person narrator is the character of the author (with varying degrees of accuracy). The narrator is still distinct from the author and must behave like any other character and any other first person narrator. Examples of this kind of narrator include Jim Carroll in The Basketball Diaries and Kurt Vonnegut in Timequake. In some cases, the narrator is writing a book ("the book in your hands"), therefore it has most of the powers and knowledge of the author.
The first person narrator may directly address the reader, though it is usually considered bad form unless there is a valid reason and explanation. Usually this is done when the intended audience is also a fictional character within the book. This is the case in novels written in the form of letters, known as epistolary novels, (Bram Stoker's Dracula) or as told to another character (Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint).
[edit] Second person
A small number of novels have been written in the second person, frequently paired with the present tense. A relatively prominent example is Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City, where the central character is clearly modeled on himself, and he seems to have decided that second-person point of view would create even more intimacy than first-person, creating the feeling that the reader is blind, in a sense, and the plot is leading him or her along. It is almost universally agreed that second-person narration is hard to manage, especially in a serious work. Other examples of second-person narrative are the Choose Your Own Adventure children's books, in which the reader actually makes decisions and jumps around the book accordingly; most interactive fiction; several chapters of Karin Lowachee's Warchild, and the first chapter of A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh.
This is the rarest of the points of view because, though theoretically possible, it does not work very well. A reader narrating to herself would never call herself, 'you,' and anything the narrator does is questionable. The example below from Jonathan Garg's New Moon makes this point.
Example:
- "It’s under your skin, you think, underneath all those arteries and veins that crisscross in a delicate lacework. Thick and gray fur, matted with your own blood, trapped between skin and muscle, desperate for release.
- You cut yourself open, blood threading down your forearm in rivulets, and you are almost disappointed not to see the wolf lurking inside you like the books said it would, a physical sign of your condition. You only see your skin sliced open like a gaping maw, and when you glance at the blood forming a shallow pool on the grainy floor, you pretend it doesn’t make you hungry.
- The wolf is still there, despite what anyone says."
This type of narration is most common in interactive fiction and Choose Your Own Adventure books. Role-playing games could also be considered second person fiction. The second person format has been used in at least a few popular novels, most notably Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler, Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City, and Tom Robbins' Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas as well as many short stories. When done well, the reader imagines himself within the action. Most stories written in second person are probably closer to first-person with "you" replacing "I".
An even rarer, but stylish version of second person narration takes the form of a series of imperative statements with the implied subject "you", as in this example from Lorrie Moore's "How to Become a Writer":
- "Decide that you like college life. In your dorm you meet many nice people. Some are smarter than you. And some, you notice, are dumber than you. You will continue, unfortunately, to view the world in exactly these terms for the rest of your life."
[edit] Additional points of view
In some cases, the term fourth person may also be applied when three people are conversing and one person begins speaking about another person in the conversation using context which seems to not include them in the conversation. Example: Jesse, Andrew, and Chelsea are having a conversation with each other and Jesse says a phrase such as "Did you know Chelsea enjoys accounting?" or "Andrew has seemed to be stressed out lately about these exams.". In either case, Jesse must be speaking directly to both people while referring to them as a fourth person.[citation needed]
[edit] Changing Points of View within the story
While the general rule is for novels to adopt a single approach to point of view throughout, there are exceptions. Epistolary novels, very common in the early years of the novel, generally consist of a series of letters written by different characters, and necessarily switching when the writer changes; the classic book Dracula by Bram Stoker takes this approach. Sometimes, though, they may all be letters from one character, such as C. S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters and Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary. Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island switches between third and first person. Many of William Faulkner's take a series of first-person points of view. Zach's Lie by Roland Smith changes from third-person to first-person.
[edit] Use of point of view in other creative media
| Past | Present | Future | |
|---|---|---|---|
| First | novels | wills | shopping lists |
| Second | letters | adventure books |
ransom notes |
| Third | novels | plays | instructions |
In literature, person is used to describe the viewpoint from which the narrative is presented. Although second-person perspectives are occasionally used, the most commonly encountered are first and third person. Third person omniscient specifies a viewpoint in which readers are provided with information not available to characters within the story; without this qualifier, readers may or may not have such information.
In movies and video games first- and third-person are often used to describe camera viewpoints; the former being a character's own, and the latter being the more familiar "general" camera showing a scene. The second-person may also be used.
For example, in a horror film, the first-person perspective of an antagonist could become a second-person perspective on a potential victim's actions. A third-person shot of the two characters could be used to show the narrowing distance between them.
In video games, a first-person perspective is used most often in the first-person shooter genre, such as in Doom, or in simulations (racing games, flight simulation games, and such). Third-person perspectives on characters are typically used in all other games. Since the arrival of 3D computer graphics in games it is often possible for the player to switch between first- and third-person perspectives at will; this is usually done to improve spatial awareness, but can also improve the accuracy of weapons use in generally third-person games such as the Metal Gear Solid franchise.
Text-based interactive fiction conventionally has description written in the second person (though exceptions exist), telling the character what she or he is seeing and doing. This practice is also encountered occasionally in text-based segments of graphical games.
One of the few examples of a second-person perspective in a modern video game is in Metal Gear Solid. During one set-piece battle, attempting to enter the first-person view instead shows the antagonist's view of the player's avatar. The concept of a second-person shooter has also been explored by artist Julian Oliver.
[edit] See also
- Third person limited omniscient
- Grammatical person
- Omniscient narrator
- Viewpoint Scope (literature)
- First hand
- Narrator
[edit] External links
- Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a Wikipedia policy in its articles
