Point of View and the Narrator

1. Point of Viewand the Narrator

2. From where is the story being told? • External narrator (Beowulf): • Aware of the story • Outside the story • May be biased or reliable • Usually knows more than the reader • Internal narrator (Canterbury Tales): • Character inside the story • Often biased • May or may not know more than the reader

3. How would the story change as told by…. www.renewablechoice.com http://www.johnrubio.com/sketches/bad_guy.gif www.personal.psu.edu

4. Types of Narration • First-person narrator: “I never should have thrown the eraser at Mr. Feeley.” • Third-person limited narrator: “He slumped in his chair and scowled.” • Third-person omniscient narrator: “Mr. Feeley was furious and the students were anxious. Too late, Femi remembered his mother’s warning: never get caught.”

5. How does the perspective impact the story? • Who is the narrator? • What is the narrator’s goal? • What is the tone (author’s attitude toward the story)? • What is the bias (narrator’s attitude toward the characters)?

6. How does the perspective impact the story? • Direct characterization: the author tells the reader about a character’s personality: “David is a studious boy who never causes trouble.” • Indirect characterization: a character’s personality is revealed through • Physical description 2. Thoughts • Words 4. Actions • Other character’s thoughts “However, his eyes sometimes betray a dark glint that occasionally unnerves other students.”

7. In other words, how does what we see and how we see it impact the thing itself?

11. Point of View: Terms • Frame story—a story within a story • Bias—a judgment based more on emotion than on fact • Stereotype—oversimplified concept; assigning generalized traits of a group to an individual