POINT OF VIEW AND THE MODERN NOVEL

GENERAL DEFINITION:

Point of view is the relationship the author has to the material he/she is telling. Think of a car accident--what a driver, pedestrian, police officer, passenger, someone looking out of a window etc. might say depends on the vantage of who views what and how. Point of view is the position from which events are told. Through whose eyes do we see the action?

SPECIFICS:

1--a narrator who knows everything (such as I do) is OMNISCIENT:

A) EDITORIAL--the narrator comments (“dear reader”)
B) OBJECTIVE--there is less narrator intrusion--Story told from the OUTSIDE

2--an author voluntarily limits the perspective by which the reader can know what is happening: LIMITED OMNISCIENT POINT OF VIEW

A) 3RD PERSON--VIEW POINT CHARACTER--we know what goes on through the ‘eyes’ of this one person. Author relates the reflection of the character, and we know about what goes on through his/her reflections--Story is told from the OUTSIDE
B) FIRST PERSON--view point conveyed through the observations of a character directly: “I saw...” Story is told from the INSIDE:

3--WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF EACH?

6--EXAMPLES:

18th-19th centuries:

from TOM JONES BY HENRY FIELDING:

[Instructor introduction: Tom and his friend Mr. Partridge are on the road together. Fielding
narrates an account of their approaching a distant light at night] “...they now discovered a light
at some distance to the great pleasure of Jones, and to the no small terror of Partridge, who
firmly believed himself to be bewitched: ‘They can be noting but ghosts or witches or some evil
spirit or other, that’s certain.’ ‘Let them be what they will,’ cried Jones. ‘ I am resolved to go up to
them and inquire the way to Coventry.’ [Instructor note: Jones and his friend approach the
lights which come from a barn and are given shelter. At this point in the novel, Fielding continues...]
We shall not proceed to acquaint the reader who these people ere, whose sudden
appearance had struck such terrors into partridge...and had a little surprised even Mr. Jones.
himself. The people who had assembled in the barn were no other than a company of gypsies.”

from VANITY FAIR BY WILLIAM THACKERY:

[Instructor note: After discussing Becky Sharp's adolescent designs on Joe Sedley and her
visions of necklaces and aristocratic company which she imagines will be the rewards of
marriage with him, Thackery comments....] Charming visions. It is the happy privilege of
youth to construct... and many a fanciful young creature besides Rebecca Sharp has indulged
in these delightful day-dreams. If Miss Rebecca can get the better of him, and at her first
entrance into life, she is a young person of no ordinary cleverness. [Instructor note: in another
scene when Joseph’s sister gives him some flowers and is about to kiss him, Thackery writes...]
And I think that for a kiss from such a dear creature as Amelia, I would purchase all...

from A TALE OF TWO CITIES BY DICKENS:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of
foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity...There was a king with
a large jaw and a queen with a plane face on the throne of England, there was a king with a large
jaw and a queen with a plane face on the throne of France....”

from THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO BY POE:

The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge...”For the love of God, Montresor”...My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so.I hastened to make an end of my labour. If forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry, I re-erected the old rampart of bones.

19th-20th Cent.

THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE BY HENRY JAMES:

This is the novel we will read

20TH cent.

from THE POWER AND THE GLORY BY GRAHAM GREENE:

“...Come to bed. he shivered: he know that he was a buffoon. An old man who married was
grotesque, but an old priest...he stood outside himself and wondered whether he was even
fit for hell. He was just a fat old impotent man mocked and taunted between the sheets. But he
remembered the fight he had been given which nobody could take away. That was what made him
worthy of damnation.--the power he had of turning the wafer into the flesh and blood of God.
wherever we went, whatever he did, he defiled God...he was like an obscene picture hung there
every day to corrupt children with...it was no good praying any longer at all; a prayer demanded
and act and he had no intention of acting. He had lived for two years in a continuous state of
mortal sin, with no one to hear his confession. He began to hiccup with nerves at the
thought of facing for the seven hundred and thirty-eights times his wife...I am coming
my love, he said and lifted himself from the crate...

Question: What is the difference in meaning as the same episode is told from different points of view?

unlimited omniscient:

Weary in every limb, Yossarian carried his food home. It sure would taste good. Col. Cathcart, cold and hungry, looked on. Finally he could bear it no longer. “Please, may I have some?” “Well,” said Yossarian, hardly bothering to hide his scorn, “I hope you starve.”

limited omniscient:

Weary in every limb, Yossarian carried his food home. It sure would taste good. It was then that he noticed Col. Cathcart looking cold and hungry. “Please, Yossarian, may I have some?” asked the Colonel. “Well,” said Yossarian, hardly bothering to hide his scorn, “I hope you starve.”

first person:

Cold and hungry, I watched Yossarian carry his food home. Finally, I could bear it no longer. “Please Yossarian.” I asked, “May I have some?” He looked at me. “Well,” he said, with a look of scorn on his face that I could not help but notice, “I hope you starve.”