Point of view signifies the way the story gets told. It answers the question of who tells the story, whose story is this. The question of the point of view has been at the center of prose fiction since the emergence of the modern novel in the 18th century. For the 19th-century American novelist Henry James, point of view was one of the most prominent and persistent problems within fiction.
First-persons point of view can taken on many forms. In almost all occurrences, however a first person point of view suggests that the story is being told by a character from within the world of the story. First person narrators can be fortuitous spectator to events that he or she relates (Marlow in Heart of Darkness), or a participant, but only a minor one (Ishmael in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Nick in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby), or the central character to the story such as the title character of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Holden Caulfield in J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye.
First-person narrators can either speak directly to an imagined audience, have their words recorded in a letter or a diary, or can be speaking into an imaginary space occupied by nobody at all.
First person narrator speaking to nobody in particular: “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.’” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
First person narrator speaking directly to another character: “May I, Monsieur, offer my services without running the risk of intruding?” — Albert Camus, The Fall
First person narrator, epistolary: “Noon. London: my flat. Ugh. The last thing on earth I feel physically, emotionally or mentally equipped to do is drive to Una and Geoffrey Alconbury's New Year's Day Turkey Curry Buffet in Grafton Underwood. Geoffrey and Una Alconbury are my parents' best friends and, as Uncle Geoffrey never tires of reminding me, have known me since I was running round the lawn with no clothes on. My mother rang up at 8:30 in the morning last August Bank Holiday and forced me to promise to go. She approached it via a cunningly circuitous route.” — Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary
Although rare, the first-person novel can also be in the plural form, that is using the pronoun “we.” Joshua Ferris’s novel, And Then We Came to The End does just that to tell the story of an office that is experiencing downsizing:
“We were fractious and overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked had something to look forward to at ten-fifteen. Most of us liked most everyone, a few of us hated specific individuals, one or two people loved everyone and everything.”
Second-person points of view are only slightly less rare than first-person plural narrators. In the second-person point of view the story is told through an address to a character often referred to as the second-person pronoun “you.” This “you” is usually the central character and the reader assumes this persona as he or she reads. Perhaps the most famous example of the second-person point of view comes from Jay McInerney’s 1984 novel Bright Lights, Big City:
You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, though the details are fuzzy. You are at a nightclub taking to a girl with a shaved head. The club is either Heartbreak or the Lizard Lounge.
Third-person points of view, are however, the most common in literature. The third-person— which relies on the personal pronouns he, she, it, and they—comes in two varieties: the omniscient and the limited. The third-person omniscient narrator has a God’s eye view of the novel’s action. This narrator has privileged access to the characters’ thoughts, feelings, and motives, and is free to move around the world of the novel through both space and time. This narrator can be either intrusive or objective. In other words, they can make comments or moral judgments on the events of the novel or they can present matters neutrally or scientifically without comment.
The limited point of view, favored since the mid-19th century, tells the story from the third person, but stays inside the confides of what is perceived, through, remembered, and felt by a single character or from very few characters. We see things, as it were, not from their point of view, but from over their shoulder. We are close to these characters, but they are not addressing us, the readers. We are voyeurs rather than confidants.
Reading:
Ambrose Bierce (326-7), "An Occurrence at Owl Creed Bridge," 327-33
George and Judy Cheatham, “Point of View in Bierce’s ‘Owl Creek Bridge,’” 219-24 PDF (in course packet)
Study Questions:
1. Identify the various points of view in "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." Does this shift in point of view change how we experience or sympathize with Peyton Farquhar?
2. Identify the thesis of Cheatham's article. Do you agree with is argument? Why or why not? Note that Cheatham's essay was not written to satisfy the demands of a high school English teacher and is not the standard five-paragraph essay of your youth. Thus, his thesis does not have to come at the end of the first paragraph.
Reading:
Ambrose Bierce (326-7), "An Occurrence at Owl Creed Bridge," 327-33
George and Judy Cheatham, “Point of View in Bierce’s ‘Owl Creek Bridge,’” 219-24 PDF (in course packet)
Study Questions:
1. Identify the various points of view in "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." Does this shift in point of view change how we experience or sympathize with Peyton Farquhar?
2. Identify the thesis of Cheatham's article. Do you agree with is argument? Why or why not? Note that Cheatham's essay was not written to satisfy the demands of a high school English teacher and is not the standard five-paragraph essay of your youth. Thus, his thesis does not have to come at the end of the first paragraph.
