Narrative Analysis 5

To analyze narrative perspective you look for and identify the perspective from which the story is being told and the omniscience or limitedness of information known and conveyed. There are two possible perspectives from which to tell a story: from without the story and from withing the story. There several degrees of knowledge conveyed: only personal knowledge, knowledge of one or more characters, knowledge of all the characters. Let's elaborate on these.
If a story is told from a perspective that is without (outside of) the story, the narratorial voice is not a character in the story. The narratorial voice can be thought of as the voice of an oral story teller: someone who recounts a story that is devoid of their own personal involvement. If a story is told from within (inside of) the story, the narratorial voice is a character in the story. The narratorial voice can be thought of as belonging to a character who has a share of the action and conflict and resolution that comprises the story. This may be a central character and is often the main character or it may be a minor character who is a participant and observer--or maybe even just an observer.When the story is told from a narratorial perspective without the story, the narrator may be fully omniscient and know the thoughts, feelings, motives, and emotions of every character and thus be able to reveal anything any character thinks or feels etc. On the other hand, this external type of narrator may be limited in perspective with knowledge of only one or a few of the characters thoughts, feelings etc. Other characters would be reported on based only on their words and actions and visible attitudes--things readily observable to the narrator.

When the story is told from a narratorial perspective from within the story, the narrator is limited to what they themselves feel or think or desire. In other words, the only thoughts, feelings, emotions, or motives they know are their own. They also know what they can observe of other character's actions, words, or visible attitudes. They also can know and report what other characters confide to the them of their own inner feelings, thoughts, or motives.

So to analyze the narratorial perspective, you look for the location within or without of the narrator and you identify the level of knowledge present. Then you can label the perspective as third person (without the story and using he, she, and it) with limited knowledge, which is called limited third person, or as third person with omniscient knowledge, which is called omniscient third person. Or you can label it as first person (within the story and using I, me, my, mine, we, us, etc as well as he and she etc) with limited knowledge, which is called first person.

How Do You Identify Point of View in Writing?

First person singular and plural points of view are easy to figure out; you simply look for the pronouns “I” or “we.” The tricky part is differentiating between limited and omniscient third person narrative point of view.

How Do You Identify Point of View in Writing?

First person singular and plural points of view are easy to figure out; you simply look for the pronouns “I” or “we.” The tricky part is differentiating between limited and omniscient third person narrative point of view.

Questions to ask yourself: Does the narrative follow more than one character’s story? Do you learn what more than one character is thinking? Do several characters’ perspectives contribute to your understanding of themes and plot events?

If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” the point of view is probably third person omniscient.

Examples of Narrative Point of View

1. “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.” — first person point of view in Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado.”

This passage from William Faulkner’s story “Barn Burning” is a good example of third person limited point of view. The reader experiences the scene, in which the boy’s father is being tried for arson in a makeshift court, strictly through the child’s eyes. Notice that the boy is illiterate.

3. “Everyone else said of her: ‘She is such a good mother. She adores her children.’ Only she herself, and her children themselves, knew it was not so. They read it in each other eyes.”

This passage from D. H. Lawrence’s “The Rocking Horse Winner” is third person omniscient narration; the reader sees the thoughts of both the mother and her children.

Narrative perspective refers to a set of features determining the way a story is told and what is told. It includes the person who is telling the story, or the narrator, as well as the character from whose point of view the story is told, or the focalizer.

Having an external narrator and focalizer means that neither the person describing the story nor the character whose point of view we are reading or listening to are part of the story itself. They are observers who have cannot affect the story in any way, such as historians describing a past event. On this narrative perspective, the narrator is emotionally distant, reliable (since he already knows the characters' emotions or the story's events), and omniscient (being aware of facts beyond the knowledge of the characters). This narrative perspective always uses the third person.

External Narrator and Internal Focalizer……On this narrative perspective, the narrator is external but the focalizer is part of the story. The narrator refers to the focalizer in third person ("John saw the man in the blue shirt"), but describes only experiences and actions of the character. It is like the character's personal recollections in third person. The narrator continues to be emotionally distant and reliable, but his perspective has become limited to what the character (John, on this occasion) is aware of.

Internal Narrator and Focalizer

When both the narrator and the focalizer are internal, then the story becomes a personal recollection of events and emotions. The first person is commonly used in this narrative perspective, giving the audience the story through the eyes of the protagonist. The narrator in this case (who is also the hero) is emotionally involved in the story, unreliable, (as he cannot know all the facts an external narrator can), and with a limited perspective.

In his presentation, Hagel notes the power of stories for engaging audiences, but says they have limited power because of their closed-ended nature. They have a beginning, middle and end. Once a story resolves, it is more or less over. It is also more about the people in the story than about the listener. It can be retold and serve as an example, but beyond that there is limited opportunity for members of an audience to engage it.