Narrative Strategies

Point of View

Location: [Reed College] [Department of English] [Laura Arnold][ Nation and Narration]Narrative Strategies--Point of View

Point of View and Walden

For Friday 2/21/97 I have asked you to read David Leverenz's Manhood and the American Renaissance pp. 9-41 and finish Walden. At its most benign, point of view is a way of characterizing the narrator (and sometimes audience) of the text: is the narrator a participant or not in the story being told? Leverenz's article is useful for showing us the ways that we might apply such information to enrich our understanding of what the text is saying intellectually and philosophically. This handout is designed to either provide you with (or remind you of) information about point of view that can lay the groundwork for our own more complex readings. As you read through the "types and terms," I would encourage you to think of examples for each category and suggest the importance of that choice of viewpoint for the text.

Types & Terms:

1. Omniscient narrator: one who knows everything that is going on and can tell us the inner thoughts of all the characters (Barnet WAL 127)
2. Selective Omniscient: one who reveals the thoughts of one of the characters but (for the most part) sees the rest of the characters from the outside only (Barnet WAL 128)
3. Effaced narrator. no evident figure is speaking, and consequently does not comment in his or her own voice and doesn't enter the minds of the characters (may make the story seem "cold," "scientific," or "reportorial.") (Barnet WAL 129)

1. Innocent Eye: emphasizes the narrator's imperfect awareness and the audience's superior awareness (Barnet WAL 130)
2. Observer: The first-person version of an effaced narrator. One should pay attention to how the "before introducing the narrator with special self-evident characteristics such as honesty, perceptiveness, et cetera, the author persuades the reader that the narrator is worthy of his attention and trust" (Leaska 258).
3. Participant: the narrator's own behavior affects his interpretation of events (Leaska 260-61).
4. Thinly-veiled ("Implied") Author: often unnamed and deceptive. What sorts of questions might we ask in this situation to distinguish the author and narrator in this situation--e.g. in Summer on the Lakes or Walden? (Barnet WAL 131-34 )

D. Undramatized Narrators: character of the narrator isn't extensively developed (Booth 176)
What are the advantages of an undramatized narrator?

Basic Questions:

1. What type of narrator does the author use? What is the advantage of this choice?
2. Do we trust the narrator? What are his/her biases? How does the author (subtly) relay these biases?
3. What is the relationship between the narrator and audience? (e.g. see B1 above)

Resources/Bibliography:

Laura.Arnold@Reed.edu