1 / 19

BBL3207

BBL3207. POINT OF VIEW. Viewpoint in narration.

jude
Download Presentation

BBL3207

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. BBL3207 POINT OF VIEW

  2. Viewpoint in narration • Identifying the viewpoint presented in a text can range from being relatively straightforward, e.g. 1st-person character-narrator, to being more complex, e.g. frequent shifts in perspective, or ambiguities i.e. whose point of view is being presented.

  3. Fowler’s Taxonomy of Narration • spatio-temporal • psychological • ideological point of view.

  4. Psychological point of view • “the choices an author makes with regard to the various ways in which a story might be narrated” (2006, p. 41). • It is concerned with whose perspective events are presented from, whether character(s) or narrator(s) and the linguistic indicators that can be used to identify this point of view. • 2 categories of narration: • Internal narration • External narration

  5. Internal and External Narration • Uspensky (1973): • Internal Narration – ‘subjective viewpoint’ of a particular character(s) • External Narration – omniscient narration, ‘objective’, includes narratorial comment on the characters and actions described

  6. Internal Narration • Of course, businesses took some time to get established –MmaRamotswe understood this – but how long could one go on at a loss? She had a certain amount of money left over from her father’s estate but she could not live on that forever. She should have listened to her father; he had wanted her to buy a butchery, and that would have been so much safer. What was the expression they used? A blue-chip investment, that was it. But where was the excitement in that? (Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, p. 86)

  7. External Narration • [. . .]Morris Zapp has just discovered what it is that’s bugging him about his flight. The realization is a delayed consequence of walking the length of the aircraft to the toilet, and strikes him, like a slow-burn gag in a movie-comedy, just as he is concluding his business there. (David Lodge, Changing Places, p. 29)

  8. Internal - the reader is likely to feel that the point of view is more restricted • External - the point of view expressed seems to belong more to the narrator than to the character (e.g. the simile)

  9. Internal Narration • The narration of events from within a particular character’s consciousness, either with that character taking on the role of narrator, or by a narrator assuming an omniscient viewpoint, able to access the internal states of the character • Type A • Type B

  10. Internal Narration – Type A • narration from a point of view within a character’s consciousness, manifesting his or her feelings about, and evaluations of, the events and characters of the story • written either in the first person or in the third person with clear indicators of the character’s “world-view” or presentation of their thoughts being evident. • the most subjective form of narration  1st person narrator

  11. Internal Narration – Type A • “I jumped on Sinbad's bottle. Nothing happened. I didn't do it again. Sometimes when nothing happened it was really getting ready to happen” ― Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha • “Did I write Ballsbridge on the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me writing to Martha?” (107). (Leonard Bloom, Ulysses)

  12. Internal Narration – Type B • The point of view of someone who is not a participating character but who has knowledge of the feelings of the characters - a narrator, or the so-called ‘omniscient author’ • takes the form of third-person omniscient narration • to a greater or lesser degree, the author gives an account of the mental processes, feelings and perceptions of the characters

  13. Internal Narration – Type B • Dr Iannis had enjoyed a satisfactory day in which none of his patients had died or got any worse. He had attended a surprisingly easy calving, lanced one abscess, extracted a molar, dosed one lady of easy virtue with Salvarsan, performed an unpleasant but spectacularly fruitful enema, and produced a miracle by a feat of medical prestidigitation. (Louis de Bernières, CaptainCorelli’sMandolin, p. 1; myunderlining) • Underlined parts do not necessarily reflect Dr Iannis’s feelings about his day but seem instead to be the narrator’s evaluations of events.

  14. External Narration • The events of a story are presented from a position outside any particular character’s consciousness, therefore excluding any thoughts or feelings that character may experience. • Type C • Type D

  15. External Narration – Type C • The “objective” presentation of events as they happened, without comment or evaluation from the narrator. • Not offering to report what an ordinary unprivileged observer could not see. • It is impersonal in relation to the author or narrator, declining to offer judgements on the characters’ actions;

  16. External Narration – Type C • This claimed authorial objectivity is indicated by avoidance of evaluative modalities (adjectives, adverbs) • ‘the most neutral, impersonal, type of third person narration’ (Fowler 1996: 177). • There is no insight into the internal states of the characters but simply a description of their actions. • It is this type of narration that is perhaps most commonly associated with stage directions in drama.

  17. External Narration – Type C Two other people had been in the lunchroom. Once George had gone out to the kitchen and made a ham-and-egg sandwich “to go” that a man wanted to take with him. Inside the kitchen he saw Al, his derby hat tipped back, sitting on a stool beside the wicket with the muzzle of a sawed-off shotgun resting on the ledge. Nick and the cook were back to back in the corner, a towel tied in each of their mouths. George had cooked the sandwich, wrapped it up in oiled paper, put it in a bag, brought it in, and the man had paid for it and gone out. “Bright boy can do everything,” Max said. “He can cook and everything. You’d make some girl a nice wife, bright boy.” (E. Hemingway, The Killer)

  18. External Narration – Type D • Takes into account the opinion and the impressions of the narrator. • The author pretends to have no access to the internal states of characters and establishes this pretence by the use of, characterised through the use of non-factive expressions (words of estrangement) • I {believe, guess, think, agree, doubt, fear, imagine} that it is raining • It {appears, seems, is likely, is certain, is probable} that it is raining • more generally be seen as indicators of a limited viewpoint, whether of character or narrator.

  19. External Narration – Type D

More Related