Point of View

The literary difference

What We’ll Learn

Why Does a Writer Need to Know About Point of View?

What is Literary Point of View? How & Why Will a Writer Manipulate Point of

View? Examples of Literary Effects Question and (maybe) Answers

Why Does a Writer Need to Know About Point of View?

The manipulation of POV presents the writer with opportunities for literary effects– Irony, suspense, character, etc.

POV is not mere opinion POV is deceptively simple

– Glad you asked – Why is point of view deceptively simple?

Obvious Literary Truths

Narratives cast an illusion– Narratives rely on the rendition of sensory detail to cast an

illusion for the reader The original virtual reality

The writer uses language to cast the literary illusion– The stronger the illusion, the stronger the writing

The writer makes choices– Subject– Language – Order– “What to put in and what to leave out” – Annie Dillard

Less Obvious Literary Truths

Language reveals personality The “voice” of a narrative is a function

of Point of View – The “personality” of a narrative lies in the

language “Voice” is an aesthetic effect NOT

available to film – the point of view of cinematic treatment is

always the camera’s

Literature vs. Visual Media

Literature “Scene” is the dramatic unit. Appeals to all senses. Character rendered via

speech, gesture, action, thought, and narrative (telling).

Subtlety of character delivered via language

– “I love you,” he lied. Slow delivery of information

allows reader reflection.

Visual Media “Scene” is the dramatic unit. Appeals to the eye and ear. Character rendered via

speech, gesture and action. Subtlety of language

delivered by acting.– “I love you.”

Swift delivery of information.

Advice

Free yourself from the cinematic imagination by embracing,

manipulating and understanding point of view.

Okay, So What is it Already?

Basic division of POV is grammatical– 1st Person

The voice is within the text – I, we, us, me, our, etc.

– 3rd Person The authorial voice manages the release of information

1st and 3rd Person Qualities

1st Person Immediacy

– But data transmission difficulties

Reliability factors– Age– Intelligence– Sensibility– Motive for telling the tale

Voice– Diction– Tone

3rd Person Omniscience – data

transmission has no boundaries, but relies on logic, etc.

Transition of time and place is instant

Authorial voice must be authoritative

Ist Person

I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on my mother’s side was not an Indian chief.

-- from: “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” by Zora Neale Hurston

3rd Person

Novelist Walker Percy once was asked what concerned him most about the future of America. He responded: “Probably the fear of seeing America, with all its great strength and beauty and freedom subside into decay through default and be defeated, not by the Communist movement but from within by weariness, boredom, cynicism, greed and in the end helplessness before its great problems.”

— from: “America at Risk: Can We Survive Without Moral Values?” by William J. Bennett Doyle

1st Person Minor Character’s POV

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. …

I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other.

1st Person – Re-teller

“‘Where is Miss Catherine?' I cried hurriedly. 'No accident, I hope?' 'At Thrushcross Grange,' he answered; 'and I would have been there too, but they had not the manners to ask me to stay.' 'Well, you will catch it!' I said: 'you'll never be content till you're sent about your business. What in the world led you wandering to Thrushcross Grange?' 'Let me get off my wet clothes, and I'll tell you all about it, Nelly,' he replied. I bid him beware of rousing the master, and while he undressed and I waited to put out the candle, he continued - 'Cathy and I escaped from the wash-house to have a ramble at liberty, and getting a glimpse of the Grange lights, we thought we would just go and see whether the Lintons passed their Sunday evenings standing shivering in corners, while their father and mother sat eating and drinking, and singing and laughing, and burning their eyes out before the fire. Do you think they do? Or reading sermons, and being catechised by their manservant, and set to learn a column of Scripture names, if they don't answer properly?'

The Compromise – 3rd Person Effaced Narration

3rd Person BUT– Limited omniscience– Psychological “distance” varies– Language reflects a single character

Generally codified by Henry James in the novel The Ambassadors, though earlier writers used it.

3rd Person Effaced – Psychological Distance makes the effect

Fear gained more and more mastery over him, especially after this second, quite unexpected murder. He longed to run away from the place as fast as possible. And if at that moment he had been capable of seeing and reasoning more correctly, if he had been able to realize all the difficulties of his position, the hopelessness, the hideousness and the absurdity of it, if he could have understood how many obstacles and, perhaps, crimes he had still to overcome or to commit, to get out of that place and to make his way home, it is very possible that he would have flung up everything, and would have gone to give himself up, and not from fear, but from simple horror and loathing of what he had done. The feeling of loathing especially surged up within him and grew stronger every minute. He would not now have gone to the box or even into the room for anything in the world.

But a sort of blankness, even dreaminess, had begun by degrees to take possession of him; at moments he forgot himself, or rather, forgot what was of importance, and caught at trifles. Glancing, however, into the kitchen and seeing a bucket half full of water on a bench, he bethought him of washing his hands and the axe. His hands were sticky with blood. He dropped the axe with the blade in the water, snatched a piece of soap that lay in a broken saucer on the window, and began washing his hands in the bucket. When they were clean, he took out the axe, washed the blade and spent a long time, about three minutes, washing the wood where there were spots of blood rubbing them with soap. Then he wiped it all with some linen that was hanging to dry on a line in the kitchen and then he was a long while attentively examining the axe at the window. There was no trace left on it, only the wood was still damp. He carefully hung the axe in the noose under his coat. …

He stood and gazed and could not believe his eyes: the door, the outer door from the stairs, at which he had not long before waited and rung, was standing unfastened and at least six inches open. No lock, no bolt, all the time, all that time! The old woman had not shut it after him perhaps as a precaution. But, good God! Why, he had seen Lizaveta afterwards! And how could he, how could he have failed to reflect that she must have come in somehow! She could not have come through the wall!

He dashed to the door and fastened the latch.

Summary

The basic unit of drama is the scene The writer makes choices One of the choice is Point of View, a quality

unique to literature The manipulation of POV allows for varying

aesthetic effects

Final Writing Tips

Try writing a memoir in 3rd person The basic unit of drama is the scene—in this regard,

POV in nonfiction works the same as fiction. Suit the POV to your subject

– Ask : How can I engagingly present all the information I need to in order to have my reader understand all I want, without offering irrelevant information, lecturing the reader, or insulting the reader with obvious information that needs no rendition?

Q&A