Point of view
A storyteller can narrate a story as if he were interested directly, or create a character in whose words the story is unfolded. Typically the issue of the point of view-who tells the story-is determined by the creative impact that a point of view will have.
In the first person singular, the narrator who relates his own story gives the impression of a person drawing past events on his own memories. In Robinson Crusoe (blog-6), Crusoe speaks not only as an eyewitness but as an active participant in events: "I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull."
Selecting things tends to be the preference of the narrator, rather than the author's option. Jane Eyre, in Charlotte Brontë's novel of the same name (1816-55), Emily Brontë's sister (blog-6), tells us that nothing of importance happened to her in the nine years between her first year at school and her departure from school to become a governess, We accept the statement since we assume Jane is the best judge of what matters to the story.
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| English novelist Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74) narrated The Vicar of Wakefield from the viewpoint of the central character, the benevo- lent, puritanical clergyman Dr. Primrose |
The method of having the main character uses the first-person voice to restrict the author's explanation of one character's thoughts and beliefs. But he provides opportunities for explanations of situations, incidents, and characters that form the backdrop to the main events by having the protagonist a minor character who is an observer rather than a participant in the story's major events. Such a narrator is Marlowe, in The Heart of Darkness, by the Polish-born author Joseph Conrad (1857-1924); another is Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby, by Scott Fitzgerald (blog-6). Emily Brontë in Wuthering Heights uses two narrators, housekeeper Ellen Dean and neighboring farm tenant Mr. Lockwood. Their interlocking narratives are used to bind past and present together.
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In the self-portrait, face in a sea of masks, has a role like authors who adopt an omniscient point of view. They can tell us everything about their creations. |
While seemingly remaining aloof from the incidents portrayed by serving as an unreliable narrator an author will teach us more about people and events than he could if he were confined to one person's point of view. That is the approach used in Brighton Rock by the English writer Graham Greene (born 1904): "Hale knew they meant to murder him before he had been in Brighton three hours." The protagonist is omniscient; he sees everything and understands everything. He teaches the reader about the feelings of his characters, without having to justify where his knowledge comes from.
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An author periodically stops the rhythm of his tale in order to make his own conclusion. Thus, in Tom Jones' opening lines, Fielding (blog-6) unexpectedly stops and says, "Reader, I think proper, before we proceed any further together, to acquaint thee, that I intend to digress, through this whole history, as often as I see occasion; of which I am myself a better judge than any pitiful critic whatever." Nevertheless, there are drawbacks to this strategy, as the author's intervention into the story can appear to break the impression of truth that the writer attempts to create. The characters are shown to be author-controlled puppets, rather than flesh and blood beings with their own minds.
By the middle of the 1st century, authors were playing with techniques with which the novelist's image could, to the extent practicable, be totally obscured, so that the circumstances of his narrative could be viewed solely from the eyes of one of the characters. The reader shares the thoughts and emotions of the character about what is happening to him. We are putting straight into the mind of the character as the action continues so that we appear to be taking part in it. A pioneering author of this sort of novel was Flaubert (blog -5), in Madame Bovary (1857), but perhaps the most extreme and complete examples of these stories are the Ulysses (blog -6) and Finnegans Wake novels by James Joy
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