Transcript Point of View

If we heard the story of Icarus from
God:
Third-Person Omniscient
Narrator
Each success validates our view that the universe
is benign and desires for us what we desire for
ourselves. Each failure comments on the unworthiness
of the aspirer. As Icarus plunged into the ocean, the
witnesses, dozens of them, felt in their hearts that his
fall was right and just. “Who did he think he was?”
sniffed the ship’s captain. “Quite right!” thought the
Ploughman, pausing long
enough in his labors to
enjoy the plume of
water that heralded
Icarus’ death. Only
Daedalus wept, though
he did not dare pause
to wipe away the tears.
The Omniscient Narrator
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Characterized by the third-person pronoun—he,
she, it.
Offers the voice of the all-knowing storyteller, who
is presented as Author/Authority.
Leaves nothing to a reader’s imagination; the
Author/Authority determines all perspectives and
interprets every action, event, and meaning.
Offers the easiest reading experience of all the
point-of-view options.
Advantages of the Omniscient
Narrator
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The author—and therefore we—can be privy to the private
thoughts of any or all the characters.
When presented by a master artist, the Omniscient Narrator
can be as important and entertaining a ‘character’ in a piece
as one with a name and a history.
When authors are not master artists, they can simply make
the storytelling easier for themselves because they don’t
have to be consistent (think of most genre pieces.)
Authors engage the opportunity to express prevailing social
views on gender, race, religion,etc. and therefore expect to
appeal to like-minded individuals.
Successful Presentations of
Omniscient Narration in Novels
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Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
The Brothers Karamazov by Feodor Dostoevsky
Scruples by Judith Krantz
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Observe the impact of the
Omniscient Narrator in the
opening paragraphs of two of the
most famous novels in literary
history.
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy
family is unhappy in its own way. Everything was in
confusion in the Oblonskys' house. The wife had
discovered that the husband was carrying on an
intrigue with a French girl,
who had been a governess in
their family, and she had
announced to her husband
that she could not go on
living in the same house with
him. This position of affairs
had now lasted two days, and
not only the husband and
wife themselves, but all the
members of their family and
the household, were painfully
conscious of it.”—
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Look at the authority of the
opening sentence—that irrefutable,
simple declarative sentence. Then
look at the freedom the narrator
enjoys—moving from individual
brains to collective ones and stating
the case the way all see it.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a
single man in possession of a good fortune must be
in want of a wife. However little known the feelings
or views of such a man may be
on his first entering a
neighbourhood, this truth is so
well fixed in the minds of the
surrounding families, that he is
considered as the rightful
property of some one or other
of their daughters.‘My dear
Mr. Bennet,’ said his lady to
him one day, ‘have you heard
that Netherfield Park is let at
last?’ Mr. Bennet replied that
he had not.” –Jane Austen, Pride and
Prejudice
In this example, observe the
unassailable (and time-sanctioned)
social truth uttered by the allknowing narrator, who can sweep
into a family breakfast without
hesitation.
Successful Presentations of
Omniscient Narration in Short
Stories
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“Barn Burning” by William Faulkner
“Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin
“The Rocking-Horse Winner” by D. H.
Lawrence
Consider this section from
Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” as
Sarty considers the tiny fire his
arsonist father has prepared as the
family makes camp en route.
“Older, the boy might have remarked this and
wondered why not a big one; why should not a man
who had not only seen the waste and extravagance of
war, but who had in his blood an inherent prodigality
with material not his own, have burned everything in
sight. . . older still, he might have divined the true
reason: that the element of fire spoke to some deep
mainspring of his father’s being.”
The Omniscient Narrator has
stepped in; the Voice creates
connections that Sarty isn’t capable
of, now or maybe ever, and does so
in the service of expressing Ab
Snopes’ world view.
Limitations of the Omniscient
Narrator
This is the most essay-like of all point-ofview options.
 This option is extremely dated unless the
voice is witty, petty, and expert because:
 The pool of like-minded individuals is very
small in the 21st Century.
 The ‘Voice,’ which can sometimes presume
to a suffocating degree of awareness, can
become tediously preachy and expository.
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The impact of this option can be
devastatingly powerful when an author
uses its inherent freedom to investigate
the world views of multiple characters
and resists the temptation to supply
interpretations. Toni Morrison’s
Beloved manages both of these things.
A Word about the Epistolary
Novel
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Events are presented in a series of letters “written” by
the characters.
This method offers a perfect blend of the most desirable
qualities of two very different Point of View options:
First-Person Participant and Third-Person Omniscient:
» Presents the immediacy and unreliability of First-Person because of the
use of the “I” pronoun.
» Presents as great a multiplicity of different voices as Third-Person
Omniscient.
» Reader witnesses the evolution of the individual characters’
personalities and world views.
» The ‘Discoverer’ of the long-lost box of letters can stand in for the
Authorial voice and is free to interpret and/or pronounce—or not.
Some Examples of the Epistolary
Novel
Pamela by Samuel Richardson
 Humphrey Clinker by Tobias Smollett
 Dracula by Bram Stoker
 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
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Some Variations of the Epistolary
Novel
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“Meneseteung,” novella by Alice Munro
» Instead of letters, newspaper clippings about an event in a
previous century spark a creative response in a contemporary
consciousness that stands in for the Authorial voice.
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The Ring and the Book, poem by Robert Browning
» Instead of letters, the dramatic monologues of each character
involved in the tragedy reveal the action; each monologue is
presented through the “I” pronoun but without judgment from
an Authorial voice—even in the frame monologues.
Back into Icarus’s head without having
to live there:
Third-Person, LimitedOmniscient
Narration
His eyes dazzled by sunlight, his heart radiating joy, Icarus flies up
and up, away from the squalid earth. He will fly to Olympus and
take his place. Then hot, searing hot, droplets against his skin. A
white blur whips past his eyes; a soft hissing sound whips past his
ears. Was that . . a feather? He
hears that hiss again and again.
Droplets of hot wax sting his
back, his legs. The wooden
framework bound to his arms
with leather shudders, and he
feels the first failure of a
wingbeat. Feathers loosed from
the wax spread across the sky;
he can barely breathe. He cannot
see, but he can feel the plunge
that will have only one end. He
knows. He screams for his
father.
Third-Person, LimitedOmniscient Narration
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Characterized by the third-person pronouns (he,
she, it.)
Offers some, although not all, of the immediacy of
first-person participant.
Offers greater freedom of perspective and
presentation options: the author creates distance
between events and interpretation.
Works best when confined to one character; can be
stretched to cover two if necessary.
Requires restraint on the author’s part: no
interpreting, please!
Advantages of the Third-Person,
Limited-Omniscient Narrator
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As much involvement with the responses of the
character as First-Person Participant: we are privy to
the private thoughts of one or two main characters.
Provides some distance between those responses and
the reader—but the author must be careful not to
interpret for the reader.
Emphasizes the change that occurs in the main
character.
Allows the author to be responsible for presenting
the perceptions of only one or two characters, not all
of them.
Examples of Third-Person Limited
Omniscient in Short Stories
“The Dead” by James Joyce
 “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
 “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton
 “The Swimmer” by John Cheever
 “The Sky is Grey” by Ernest J. Gaines
 “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery
O’Connor
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Examples of Third-PersonLimited Narration in Novels
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Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest
Hemingway
A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest J.
Gaines
Limitations of the Third-Person
Limited Omniscient Narrator
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Not as instantaneous as the First Person options.
The author is still shackled to one or two perceptions.
The presentation of the world view of the character
must be consistent throughout the piece and can only
change if the change is motivated and plausible.
A Word about Stream-OfConsciousness Narration
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Is a variation of Third-Person Limited Omniscient.
Is the most experimental of all point-of-view options.
Details virtually every thought in a character’s head
sometimes without context and always without
interpretation from the author.
Is exceedingly demanding on a reader because there is no
filter of any kind; the reader must decide what is
significant.
Is particularly effective when detailing a moment when a
character experiences an illness (physical or mental) or an
altered mental state.
Some Examples of Stream-ofConsciousness
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Ulysses by James Joyce (we experience an entire day in the
life of Leopold Bloom as he makes his way across Dublin.)
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Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway re-lives
the major moments of her entire life one afternoon as she plans a party
while Septimus Warren-Smith, a veteran experiencing post-traumatic
stress disorder, re-lives the horror of his war experience and plans his
suicide.)
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The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (Benjy,
who is mentally retarded, communicates the entire story through
stream-of-consciousness.)
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
(confined to Chief Broom’s experience after electro-shock therapy.)
The Story of Icarus Without Filters of
Any Kind:
Third-Person
Dramatic Narration
Freaked you out, didn’t it?
You were expecting me to tell you
where to look and how to feel about
what you saw—or didn’t see.
I could do that. Or I could trust
you to figure it out for yourself.
Third-Person Dramatic Narration
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Characterized by the third-person pronouns (he, she, it).
Offers the same level of immediacy as third-person,
limited-omniscient narration.
Offers the greatest freedom of perspective for the reader,
who is the only one who can decide where to look or what
is important.
This option creates the greatest distance between events and
interpretation, since the reader is on his or her own.
Requires the greatest restraint on the part of the author, who
must trust the reader to infer meaning correctly.
Demands the most skill from an author, who must set up
and lay out scenes so that meaning is implied rather than
stated.
If you consider how the
experience of seeing a film is
different from the experience of
seeing a play, you will see why the
technique is called ‘dramatic.’
A film is easier to view because the action is filtered
through a director, an actor, and a cinematographer. You
always know where to look; you are always cued how to
view an event through close ups, wide shots, etc.
When you see a play, you have to work harder
to understand what you’re seeing. You must
decide where to look. There are no filtering
perspectives; there is only the action.
Hence comes the term
“Dramatic Narration”—because
this reading experience is the most
like watching a play (not because
it’s more serious than the others or
can’t be funny.)
Advantages of Dramatic
Narration
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The responses of the characters are presented from
outside (what they do or say) rather that from the
inside (we are not privy to any character’s thoughts.)
Provides the greatest distance between those
responses and the reader.
Most subtle of all options in its de-emphasis of the
change that occurs in the main character.
Requires the reader to be responsible for 90% of the
interpretation—and to have the interpretive talent to
register the change in a character.
Requires the greatest talent for nuance and selection
on the part of the author.
Examples of Dramatic Narration
“Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest
Hemingway
 “That Evening Sun” by William Faulkner
 “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck
 “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway
 “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” by Ernest
Hemingway.
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Limitations of Dramatic
Narration
Requires the greatest skill from a writer in
the matter of selecting and presenting.
 Can be too demanding for uninitiated
readers.
 Works better in short, theme-driven pieces.
 Is the most ‘poetic’ of prose options.
 Is too demanding for a writer to sustain in a
full-length novel—or for a reader to
tolerate.
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Remember the painting?
Do you see Icarus’s legs in the
lower right-hand corner beneath
the ship?
What effect do you think Pieter
Breughel, the author of the
painting, was attempting to achieve
through this choice?
For the answer to this question,
you must wait patiently for next
unit’s PowerPoint presentation on
Theme.