Graphic. Punctuation
Phonetic Stylistic Devices
English Vocabulary
Lexical Stylistic Devices
Syntactical Stylistic Devices
Decoding Stylistics
Biographies
Guidelines
Analysis
Texts
Guidelines
Narrators and point of view
In fiction the author does not address the reader directly. He creates a narrator whose voice we hear as we read the story. It is from the narrator's point of view that we see events unfold. The narrator may be a strong presence in the text commenting on and interpreting the material he presents or, at the other end of the spectrum, he may be almost invisible, simply allowing the story to present itself. Narrators are divided into two broad categories: first-person narrators and third-person narrators. The category of third-person narrators is divided into three subcategories: omniscient, limited and dramatic objective. Stream of consciousness, a relatively recent development in narrative technique, may be an extension of either first or third-person narratives.
First-person narrators
Point of view
First-person narrators, who refer to themselves as T, tell stories in which they are directly involved. In a first-person narrative the reader's vision of the story, or point of view, is limited to what the narrator himself knows, experiences, infers or has learned second-hand from others.
First-person narratives are, by definition, subjective. The only thoughts and feelings that first-person narrators experience directly are their own. The reader can never expect to see characters and events as they actually are, but only as they appear to the T narrator. Therefore special attention should be paid to the personality of the first-person narrators. Are they reliable? Do they have biases and prejudices that may influence how they tell the story?
In certain first-person narratives the reader can understand more than the narrator himself. This is often the case when the narrator is a child or a not very perceptive adult. By contrasting the narrator's perception of events and the reader's more informed views, the author can create humour or irony.
The first-person narrative is commonly associated with non-fictional literary forms such as biographies, memoirs or diaries. When used in fictional works it lends authenticity to the story. It is also perhaps the most effective form of storytelling for getting the reader intellectually and emotionally involved.
First-person narrators
When a story is told by someone outside the action, he is called a third-person narrator (because he refers to everybody in the story in the third person: 'he', 'she', 'they'). In this form of narration the person who is telling the story is like an observer who has witnessed what has happened, but plays no part in the events.
Omniscient point of view
The omniscient third-person narrator is a kind of god; he is all-knowing. He knows everything about the fictional world he has created: he can read other characters' innermost thoughts, he is able to be in several places at once, he knows exactly what is going to happen and how each character will behave. He is free to tell us as much or as little as he wishes. An omniscient third-person narrator who interrupts the narrative and speaks directly to the readers is called obtrusive. He may use these intrusions to summarise, philosophise, moralise or to guide the reader's interpretation of events. This kind of narrator was particularly popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. If the narrator does not address the reader directly he is referred to as non-obtrusive.
Omniscient point of view
When an author uses a limited omniscient narrator, he chooses a character in the story and tells the story from his point of view. This character becomes the centre of revelation and the reader sees the events and other characters from his viewpoint. If the narrator moves back and forth between an omniscient viewpoint and the viewpoint of the focal character, we refer to the narrative technique as 'free indirect style'. Free indirect style is perhaps the most widely-used mode of narration in modern fiction. Limited omniscient narration involves the reader more than pure omniscient narration. By associating the narrating voice with one of the characters in the story, the author gives it an identity and therefore makes it more interesting for the reader. Also, because much of the story is told from the partial viewpoint of one of the characters, the reader gets the idea that anything can happen in the course of the novel, just as it can in real life.
Dramatic or objective point of view
When an author uses a dramatic or objective point of view, the story seems to be told by no one. This narrative technique has often been compared to a videocamera left running. The narrator does not mediate between the story and the reader. He steps aside and allows the story to present itself through setting, action and dialogue. The reader is never taken inside the minds of the characters. He is presented with material which he alone must analyse and interpret. Although the narrator does not actively participate in the storytelling, he does have an important role to play in this type of narrative. It is the narrator who decides when to turn the videocamera on and off and where to point it. He decides what material to present, and his choices will obviously affect the reader's response. The dramatic point of view is widely used by modern writers because of the impersonal and objective way it presents experience.
Stream of consciousness
Stream of consciousness is the term applied to any attempt by a writer to represent the conscious and subconscious thoughts and impressions in the mind of a character. This technique takes the reader inside the narrating character's mind, where he sees the world of the story through the thoughts and senses of the focal character.
At the beginning of the twentieth century some authors, notably James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner, developed a stream of consciousness technique called interior monologue.
Interior monologue
The term is borrowed from drama, where monologue refers to the part in a play where an actor expresses his inner thoughts aloud to the audience. In fiction, an interior monologue is a record of a characters, thoughts and sense impressions.
As people do not think in complete, well-formed logical sentences, Joyce, Woolf and Faulkner abandoned traditional syntax, punctuation and logical connections in order to represent the flow of a character's thoughts. For example, in Joyce's Ulysses (1922) the reader finds himself with a transcript of one of the character's thoughts which contains no commas, full stops or capital letters. The stop, start, disjointed and often illogical nature of interior monologue makes it a challenge for the reader to interpret.
