1. Point of View Windows on the World
AP English Literature
Hilltop High School
Mrs. Demangos
from Discovering Literature, Guth & Rico, 2nd ed. ( ) and
Perrine’s Literature, Structure, Sound, & Sense, Arp & Johnson, 10th ed. ( )

2. Henry James
“The deepest quality of a work of art will always be the quality of the mind of the producer.”

3. Edith Wharton
“The effect of compactness and instantaneity sought in the short story is attained mainly by the observance of two ‘Unities’—the old traditional one of time, and that other, more modern and complex, which requires that any rapidly enacted episode shall be seen through only one pair of eyes.”

4. What we call reality is our perception of reality—a picture we have constructed in our minds from input that is biased or incomplete.
Windows on the World

5. We read a story in part to share imaginatively in a writer’s perception of reality. We share in a writer’s vision of the world.
Much modern fiction takes this awareness of the angle of vision a step further…
Modern
writers
Windows on the World

6. Apart from the author who is writing the story …
Who is the narrator observing the events?
From what angle is the narrator observing the events?
Who is telling the story in the story?
Windows on the World

7. Narrative point of view
First person
Second person
Third-person omniscient
Third-person limited
Third-person objective
Minor character
Major character
Minor character
Major character
Points of View

8. First person Point of View
In the first person point of view the author disappears into one of the characters, who tells the story in the first person. This character may be either a major or a minor character, protagonist or observer, and it will make considerable difference whether the protagonist tells the story or someone else tells it.
In “A Rose for Emily” the story is told in the unusual first-person plural, from the vantage point of the townspeople observing Emily’s life through the years.
Point of View

9. First person Point of View
The following is told in the first person from the point of view of the grasshopper:
Cold and hungry, I watched the ant tugging over the snow a piece of corn he had stored up last summer. My feelers twitched, and I was conscious of a tic in my left hind leg. Finally I could bear it no longer.
“Please, friend ant,” I asked, “may I have a bit of your corn?”
Point of View

10. First person Point of View
He looked me up and down. “What were you doing all last summer?” he asked, rather too smugly it seemed to me.
“I sang from dawn till dark,” I said innocently, remembering the happy times.
“Well,” he said, with a priggish sneer, “since you sang all summer, you can dance all winter.”
Point of View

11. First person Point of View
The first person point of view shares the virtues and limitations of the third-person limited:
Gain in immediacy and reality since we get the story directly from the participant.
No opportunity, however, for interpretation by the author.
Offers excellent opportunities for dramatic irony and for studies in limited or blunted human perceptiveness.
Point of View

12. First person autobiographical
Story seems deeply felt.
“I” speaking in the story is talking about scenes and people from personal experience.
May have a confessional tone; the writer may be unburdening his or her heart.
Reader must remember that the autobiographical material is fictionalized— shaped by the creative imagination.
Point of View

13. Point of View First person autobiographical
The “I” speaking to us then becomes a persona—an assumed identity.
The distance between person and persona varies greatly from story to story, or writer to writer.
The persona of the narrator may have much in common with the author. Or else it may represent the author in disguise, as if wearing a mask.
Point of View

14. Point of View First person Observer
We may see the story through the eyes of someone at the center of the action.
We may also see events through the eyes of someone on the sidelines, who is not a major player.
This person becomes our scout, our reliable source, our “chosen interpreter”
A reflector—anything that happens in the story will reach us by way of his or her perceptions.
Point of View

15. Point of View First person Observer
A special irony may make us smile at the naive narrator who seems to know less than an alert reader.
Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn watches the world with wide-open innocent eyes— recognizing human duplicity or vindictiveness long after the more knowing reader.
Point of View

16. Point of View Second person
You use the second-person point of view to address the reader.
The second person uses the pronouns “you,” “your,” and “yours.” We use these three pronouns when addressing one, or more than one, person.
Second person is often appropriate for messages, presentations, and business and technical writing.
Can sound didactic.
Grammar girl
Point of View

17. Point of View Second person
Rare; authors seldom speak directly to the reader.
When you encounter this point of view, pay attention. Why? The author has made a daring choice, probably with a specific purpose in mind.
Most times, second-person point of view draws the reader into the story, almost making the reader a participant in the action.
Point of View

18. Point of View Second person
written in second person to make the experiences and tribulations of the unnamed main character more personal and intimate for the reader:
“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, although the details are fuzzy.”
—Opening lines of Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City (1984)
Point of View

19. Third person omniscient
The story is told in the third person by a narrator whose knowledge and prerogatives are unlimited.
Narrator is free to go wherever they wish, to peer inside the minds and hearts of character and tell us what they are thinking and feeling.
Narrator can interpret behavior and can comment on the significance of their stories.
They know it all; they can tell us as much or as little as they please.
Point of View

20. Third person omniscient
The following is told from the omniscient point of view. Notice that in it we are told not only what both characters do and say, but also what they think and feel:
Weary in every limb, the ant tugged over the snow a piece of corn he had stored up last summer. It would taste mighty good at dinner tonight.
A grasshopper, cold and hungry, looked on. Finally he could bear it no longer. “Please, friend ant, may I have a bite of corn?"
Point of View

21. Third person omniscient
“What were you doing all last summer?” asked the ant. He looked the grasshopper up and down. He knew its kind.
“I sang from dawn till dark,” replied the grasshopper, happily unaware of what was coming next.
“Well,” said the ant, hardly bothering to conceal his contempt, “since you sang all summer, you can dance all winter.”
He who idles when he is young
will have nothing when he’s old.
Point of View

22. Third person omniscient
The following is told from the omniscient point of view. Notice that in it we are told not only what both characters do and say, but also what they think and feel:
Weary in every limb, the ant tugged over the snow a piece of corn he had stored up last summer. It would taste mighty good at dinner tonight.
A grasshopper, cold and hungry, looked on. Finally he could bear it no longer. “Please, friend ant, may I have a bite of corn?"
Point of View

23. Third person omniscient
“What were you doing all last summer?” asked the ant. He looked the grasshopper up and down. He knew its kind.
“I sang from dawn till dark,” replied the grasshopper, happily unaware of what was coming next.
“Well,” said the ant, hardly bothering to conceal his contempt, “since you sang all summer, you can dance all winter.”
He who idles when he is young
will have nothing when he’s old.
Point of View

24. Third person omniscient
The most flexible point of view; permits the widest scope
Most subject to abuse. The narrator is in constant danger of coming between the reader and the story, or…
The continual shifting of viewpoint from character to character may cause a breakdown in coherence or unity
Skillfully used it enables the author to achieve simultaneous breadth and depth
Unskillfully used it can destroy the illusion of reality
Point of View

25. Third person omniscient
Some authors guide readers through their fictional world.
The Intruding Author feels free to comment, to chat with us as the readers, to take us into his or her confidence.
We are very much aware of the author’s presence as the narrator.
Every so often the author steps into the story from the outside, interrupting it to offer asides, philosophical reflections, a personal view of life.
The Intruding Author
Point of View

26. Third person omniscient
The intrusive narrator was very popular in literature until the 20th century. It was used by many novelists, including Leo Tolstoy, George Eliot and Henry Fielding.
Intruding
Author
Intruding
Author
Intruding
Author
Point of View

27. Third person omniscient
In Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre,” Jane is the first-person narrator, but Brontë often intrudes and speaks to the reader directly, even using the word “reader."
Intruding
Author
Point of View

28. Third person omniscient
“A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a room in the George Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering on the walls as inns have; such a carpet, such furniture, such ornaments on the mantle-piece…”
Intruding
Author
Point of View

29. Third person Limited Point of View
The story is told in the third person, but from the viewpoint of one character in the story.
Character is a filter through whose eyes and mind the writer looks at events telling us what the character sees, hears, thinks, and feels.
Writer may interpret the character’s thoughts and behavior.
Writer limits themselves to this character’s perceptions.
Character may be minor or major character, participant or observer.
Point of View

30. Third person limited Point of View
Notice we are told nothing of what the grasshopper thinks or feels. We see and hear and know of him only the ant sees and hears and knows.
Weary in every limb, the ant tugged over the snow a piece of corn he had stored up last summer. It would taste mighty good at dinner tonight. It was then that he noticed the grasshopper, looking cold and pinched.
“Please, friend ant, may I have a bite of your corn?” asked the grasshopper.
Point of View

31. Third person limited Point of View
He looked the grasshopper up and down. “What were you doing all last summer?” he asked. He knew its kind.
“I sang from dawn till dark,” replied the grasshopper.
“Well,” said the ant, hardly bothering to conceal his contempt, “since you sang all summer, you can dance all winter.”
Point of View

32. Third person limited Point of View
Notice we are told nothing of what the grasshopper thinks or feels. We see and hear and know of him only the ant sees and hears and knows.
Weary in every limb, the ant tugged over the snow a piece of corn he had stored up last summer. It would taste mighty good at dinner tonight. It was then that he noticed the grasshopper, looking cold and pinched.
“Please, friend ant, may I have a bite of your corn?” asked the grasshopper.
Point of View

33. Third person limited Point of View
He looked the grasshopper up and down. “What were you doing all last summer?” he asked. He knew its kind.
“I sang from dawn till dark,” replied the grasshopper.
“Well,” said the ant, hardly bothering to conceal his contempt, “since you sang all summer, you can dance all winter.”
Point of View

34. Third person Limited Point of View
Approximates more closely than the omniscient the conditions of real life.
Narrator is a ready-made unifying element.
Additional device of characterization; actions and motives reveal biases or limitations.
Limited field of observation.
Clumsy writers will have character listening at keyholes, accidentally overhearing important conversations, or coincidentally being present when important events occur.
Point of View

35. “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter
Third person Limited
“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter
Stream of consciousness presents the apparently random thoughts going through a character’s head within a certain period of time, mingling memory and present experiences, and employing transitional links that are psychological rather than strictly logical.
Variant of third-person
limited point of view
stream of
consciousness
Point of View

36. Third person objective
Narrator disappears behind a camera that can go anywhere but can record only what is seen and heard.
It cannot comment, interpret, or enter a character’s mind.
Also called the dramatic point of view; reader is placed in the position of spectator at a movie or play
Point of View

37. Third person objective
Reader may see the character and hear what they say, but they must infer what they think or feel and what they are like.
Purest example: story written entirely in dialogue. As soon as writers add their words of their own, they begin to interpret through their very choice of words.
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is essentially objective in its narration.
Point of View

38. Third person objective
This version is told from the objective point of view since we are nowhere taken into the thoughts and feelings of the characters.
The ant tugged over the snow a piece of corn he had store up last summer, perspiring in spite of the cold.
A grasshopper, his feelers twitching and with a tic in his left hind leg, looked on for some time. Finally, he asked, “Please, friend and, may I have a bite of your corn?”
Point of View

39. Third person objective
The ant looked the grasshopper up and down. “What were you doing all last summer?” he snapped.
“I sang from dawn till dark,” replied the grasshopper, not changing his tone.
“Well,” said the ant, and a faint smile crept into his face, “since you sang all summer, you can dance all winter.”
Point of View

40. Third person objective
What the character thinks and feels is seen from the outside; readers draw their own inferences.
Relies heavily on external action and dialogue.
Offers no opportunities for direct interpretation by the author; little comment, a minimum of editorializing, judging, or preaching.
Example: Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”
Point of View

41. Examining Point of View
For readers, the examination of point of view may be important both for understanding and for evaluating the story.
Are the events being interpreted by a narrator or by one of the characters?
Has the writer chosen the point of view for maximum revelation of the material or for another reason?
Is the author deliberately misleading readers by presenting events through a character who is falsely interpreting them?
Examining Point of View

42. Examining Point of View
Has the author used the selected point of view fairly and consistently?
Is the writer consistent in their use of point of view?
If the point of view shifts, does it shift for a just artistic reason?
Serious literary writers choose and use point of view so as to yield ultimately the greatest possible insight, either in fullness or in intensity.
Examining Point of View