Literary Appreciation

Unit 2: Point of View

Second year students
Instructor: Muna Ghanayem
• Point of view: it refers to the narrator of a story, the part he/she plays
in the events and any limits placed upon his/her knowledge. (The one
who tells the story)
• The narrator of a story could be the main character (Protagonist), or
one of the main characters.
• Some narrators play only minor parts in the stories they tell. Other
take no active part at all.
• In the Godfather Death Tale, the narrator does not participate in the
events of the story. He is not a character in the story, and he is not
even named. This narrator stands at some distance from the action
telling what the main characters say and do; telling also, at times,
what they think feel or desire. He seems to have unlimited
knowledge: he even knows the mind of Death, who because “he
wanted revenge” let the doctor’s candle go out.
• Other narrators are have limited knowledge of the characters; they
can only see into the mind of one character. They have no
opinions to express on the events of the story.
• The narrator of Godfather Death expresses his opinion of the
doctor’s act against Death will: “he ought to have remembered his
Godfather warning”. This narrator is not a character but he seems
deeply involved in the story.
• A story may even be told by a narrator who seems so neutral and
isolated that he limits himself to report only direct conversation,
and to describe without opinion or comment, the appearances of
things.
• Narrators have many different kinds
• When the narrator is the real-life author and he is telling his own story;
then this story becomes nonfiction: it is a memoir, an account of
travel, an autobiography.
• In a short story, it is usual for the writer to maintain one Point of View
from beginning to end, but in some stories, the writer introduces more
than one point of view.
• For example: in the long novel “War and Peace”, Leo Tolstoi, includes
the great drama of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, freely shifts the point
of view in and out the minds of many characters, among them
Napoleon himself.
• Theoretically, many points of view are possible. A
narrator who says “I” is a First Person Narrator and a
Character in the story. This Narrator can be the
protagonist, another major character, a minor
character, an observer, or even a character who
arrives late upon scene and tries to piece together
what happened.
• A narrator’s knowledge might vary in gradation from
total omniscience to total ignorance. But in reading
fiction, we meet familiar and recognizable points of
view
1. Narrator a participant (writing in the first person: I )
• A major character: the protagonist
• A minor character: an observer standing a little to one
side, watching a story unfold that mainly involves
someone else.
2. Narrator a nonparticipant ( writing in the third person:
He – She - They)
• All – knowing (seeing into any of the characters)
• Seeing into one major character
• Seeing into one minor character
• Objective (not seeing into any character)
• A Nonparticipant Narrator is not a character in the story. This
narrator views the characters of the story; perhaps seeing into the
minds of one or more of them.
• All knowing nonparticipant narrator (omniscient), the narrator sees
into the minds of all or some characters moving when necessary from
one to another.
• This is the point of view in Godfather Death, whose narrator knows
the feelings and the motives of the father, of the doctor, and even of
death himself. In that he adds an occasional comment or opinion. This
narrator is “Editorial Omniscient” (as we can tell from his
disapproving remark that the doctor “ought to have remembered”
• When the physician came to the sick girl's bed he saw Death at her
feet. He should have remembered his godfather's warning, but he
was so infatuated by the princess's great beauty and the prospect of
becoming her husband that he threw all thought to the winds.
• It is also clear in his observation and remark that the father did not
understand God’s wisdom in sharing out blessings:
• "Then I do not wish to have you for a godfather," said the man. "You
give to the rich, and let the poor starve."
• Thus spoke the man, for he did not know how wisely God divides out
wealth and poverty.
• A narrator who is “impartial omniscient” presents the thoughts and
the actions of the characters, but does not judge them or comment
on them.
• Limited omniscient: when the narrator sees events through the eyes of a
single character, whether a major or a minor one. The author is the one
who selects which character to see through.
• In the Novel: “Madame Bovary”, Gustave Flaubert, the author, tells of the first time a young
country doctor, Charles Bovary, meets Emma, the woman later to become his wife. The
doctor has been called late at night to set the broken leg of a Farmer, Emma’s father.
• Charles selected one, cut it into lengths, and smoothed it down with a piece of broken
window glass, while the maidservant tore sheets of bandages and Mademoiselle
Emma tried to sew some pads. She was a long time finding her workbox, and her
father showed his impatience. She made no reply; but as she sewed, she kept pricking
her fingers and raising them to her mouth to suck.
• Charles was surprised by the whiteness of her fingernails. They were almond-shaped,
tapering, as polished and shining as Dieppe ivories. Her hands, however, were not
pretty – not pale enough, perhaps a little rough at the knuckles; and they were too
long, without softness of line. The finest thing about her was her eyes. They were
brown, but seemed black under the long eyelashes; and she had an open gaze that
met yours with fearless color.
• In this famous scene, Charles Bovary, on first meeting Emma, he notices only
her dress, he is not interested in looking at her. But then, he is waiting for her
to needle the pads, so he looks at her face and notices her beautiful eyes. It is
as if the reader is seeing through the doctor’s eyes, and suddenly became one
with him: (notice the effect of “an open gaze that met yours”. The narrator
here is neither Gustave nor the doctor, but someone able to enter the minds
of others. Here, this narrator is limited to knowing the thoughts and
perceptions of the young doctor.
• The Objective Point of View: the narrator does not enter the mind of any
character, he only describes the events from the outside. Telling us what
people say and how their faces look. He leaves us to conclude their thoughts
and feelings. It is also called “the fly on the wall”, it’s a fly that is invisible to
every one, yet has a highly discriminating gaze, who knows which details to
look for to communicate the deepest meaning.
• Innocent narrator: a character who fails to understand all the implications of
the story.

• To capture reality, modern writers of fiction have employed many strategies

1. Stream of consciousness: it describes the procession of thoughts passing
through the mind. In fiction the stream of consciousness is of selective
omniscience: the presentation of thoughts and sense impressions in a
lifelike style – not in a sequence arranged by logic. Stream –of-
consciousness writing usually occurs in short passages.
2. Interior Monologue: an extended presentation of a character’s thoughts,
not in the seemingly helter-skelter order of a stream of consciousness, but
in an arrangement as if the character were speaking out loud to himself for
us to overhear.