Narrative Perspectives

Question 1

First Person

Answer 1

• Participating role (although may not fit into the main plot)
• Reader given specific character’s interpretation of events

Question 2

Third Person

Answer 2

• External to world of story
• 3rd person narrator can still have a personality
• Scene has been processed before it reaches the readers, adding things that aren’t exactly part of the story

Question 3

Omniscient Narrative Style

Answer 3

• Easiest to follow as not unreliable/biased
• Narrator is all seeing + all knowing, as if they’re God looking on the world + telling a story about a select few of the world’s inhabitants
• Reader is given information about a range of characters/situations, so they can understand an event from multiple perspectives
• Particularly notable in 18th + 19th century novels
• Modernist literature sought to break free from this to offer a more realist narrative perception

Question 4

Alternating Narrative Perspective

Answer 4

-The narrative perspective changes e.g. 3rd person might become 1st person

Question 5

Intrusive Narrative Voice

Answer 5

• Authorial voice ‘intrudes’ on events of the narrative, potentially dispelling the illusion that what we’re reading is true
• Popular until 20th century, until making a comeback in post-modern writers
• Might include direct address e.g. ‘you’
• Often expresses their own ideas on what’s taking place in the narrative
• Can sometimes evaluate characters + actions in the story + give a view about the world in general
• Establishes a 1:1 relationship between writer + reader; reader becomes the main subject of the author’s attention

Question 6

Stream of Consciousness

Answer 6

• First used in 20th century in response to growing interest in psychology
• Tends to use less punctuation + grammatical structure
• Images + ideas flow + tend to interrupt one another
• Readers are given the impression of being inside the mind of the voice/character; read what they’re thinking as they’re thinking it

Question 7

Direct Discourse

Answer 7

• Told by the character
• e.g. ‘She threw her gloves on the ground, tears welling in her eyes, and said, “This is it, James. You have to choose.”’
• e.g. ‘She threw her gloves on the ground, tears welling in her eyes, and thought, “This is it, James. He’s going to have to choose.”

Question 8

Indirect Discourse

Answer 8

• Told by the narrator
• e.g. ‘She threw her gloves on the ground, tears welling in her eyes, and said that it was time for James to make his decision.’
• e.g. ‘She threw her gloves on the ground, tears welling in her eyes, and thought that the time had come, that he was going to have to choose.’

Question 9

Free Indirect Discourse

Answer 9

• 3rd person narrator but the character’s thoughts come out in the narration
• Narrative voice takes on the voice of the character without saying ‘he said’ etc
• Narrator becomes a ventriloquist for characters

Question 10

Focalisation

Answer 10

• Through whose eyes we’re looking
• Narration takes on the perspective/PoV of a character within the novel
• Different from free direct discourse as it doesn’t relate to stated speech or thoughts