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INTRODUCTION:
A story's point of view is the eyes, mind, or consciousness (of a character or narrator) through
which the reader experiences the story. Point of view is a story's camera angle, but the fictional
"camera" is capable of seeing into characters' minds and reporting their thoughts and feelings.
The point of view of a story controls what information a narrator is allowed to know and report,
as well as the narrator's attitude toward the events of the story and toward the reader. Point of
view is exceedingly complicated and interesting in real practice, but we can distinguish four basic
points of view.
FIRST PERSON NARRATOR:
A character in the story - major, minor, or marginal - may tell the story as s/he experienced, saw,
heard, and understood the story. The reader knows the first person narrator's interior
thoughts and feelings but does not know the interior thoughts and feelings of other
characters.
THIRD PERSON LIMITED NARRATOR:
A disembodied narrator, not a character in the fictional world of the story, tells the story, but
has access to the thoughts and feelings of one of the characters.
From For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
They were walking through the heather of the mountain meadow and Robert Jordan felt the brushing
of the heather against his legs, felt the weight of his pistol in its holster against his thigh,
felt the breeze from the snow of the mountain peaks cool on his back, and, in his hand, he felt the
girls' hand firm and strong, the fingers locked in his. From it, from the palm of her hand
against the palm of his, from their fingers locked together, and from her wrist across his wrist
something came from her hand, her fingers and her wrist to his that was fresh as the first light
air that moving towards you over the sea barely wrinkles the glassy surface of a calm...
THIRD PERSON OBJECTIVE NARRATOR:
The narrator has no access to any characters' thoughts or feelings. Most "cinematic" points of
view - all thoughts and feelings must be shown through characters' gestures, actions and dialogue.
From The Graduate by Charles Webb
Benjamin Braddock graduated from a small Eastern college on a day in June. Then he flew home.
The following evening a party was given for him by his parents. By eight o'clock most of the
guests had arrived but Benjamin had not yet come down from his room. His father called up from the
foot of the stairs but there was no answer. Finally he hurried up the stairs and to the end of
the hall.
"Ben?" he said, opening his son's door.
"I'll be down later," Benjamin said.
"Ben, the guests are all here," his father said. "They're all waiting."
...
"Well here he is himself," Mr.s Carlson said. She wrapped her arms around Benjamin and hugged
him. "Ben?" she said, patting one of his shoulders, "I hope you won't be embarrassed if I tell
you I'm just awfully proud to know you."
"I won't," Benjamin said. "But I have some things on my mind at the moment and I'm - "
"Here's something for you," Mr. Carlson said. He handed Benjamin a bottle wrapped with a red
ribbon. "I hope they taught you how to hold your liquor back there." He threw his arm around
Benjamin's shoulder and swept him back inside the house.
Benjamin ducked under his arm and set the bottle of liquor beside the door. "Look," he said.
"Could you please let me go for my walk!"
"What?"
"I'm sorry not to be more sociable," Benjamin said. "I appreciate everybody coming over
but - "
OMNISCIENT NARRATOR:
The narrator is capable of knowing, seeing, and telling whatever s/he wishes. It is characterized
by freedom in shifting from the exterior world to the inner selves of a number of characters by a
freedom of movement in both time and place;but even to a greater extent, it is characterized by
the freedom of the narrator to comment upon the meaning of actions.
From Beloved by Toni Morrison
A fully dressed woman walked out of the water. She barely gained the dry bank of the stream
before she sat down and leaned against a mulberry tree. All day and all night she sat there, her
head resting on the trunk in a position abandoned enough to crack the brim in her straw hat.
Everything hurt but her lungs most of all. Sopping wet and breathing shallow she spent those hours
trying to negotiate the weight of her eyelids. The day breeze blew her dress dry; the night wind
wrinkled it. Nobody saw her emerge or came accidentally by. If they had, chances are they would
have hesitated before approaching her. Not because she was wet or dozing or had what sounded like
asthma, but because amid all that she was smiling. It took her the whole of the next morning to
lift herself from the ground and make her way through the woods past a giant temple of boxwood to
the field and then the yard of the slate-gray house. Exhausted again, she sat down on the first
handy place - a stump not far from the steps of 124. By then keeping her eyes open was less of an
effort. She could manage it for a full two minutes or more. Her neck, its circumference no wider
than a parlor-service saucer, kept bending and her chin brushed the bit of lace edging her dress.
Women who drink champagne when there is nothing to celebrate can look like that: their straw
hats with broken brims are often askew; they nod in public places; their shoes are undone. But
their skin isnot like that of the woman breathing near the steps of 124. She had new skin,
lineless and smooth, including the knucklesof her hands.
By late afternoon when the carnival was over, and the Negroes were hitching rides home if they
were lucky - walking if they were not - the woman had fallen asleep again. The rays of the sun
struck her full in the face, so that when Seth, Denver and Paul D rounded the curve in the road all
they saw was a black dress, two unlaced shoes below it, and Here Boy nowhere in sight.
"Look," said Denver. "What is that?"
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