IDT1415 CW Entry 15 - Point of View (PoV)

I must confess that this is one of the areas of writing that I find particularly difficult and so I was determined to trying to understand it better.  One of the set readings for week 6, From Long Shots to X-Rays: Distance & Point of View in Fiction Writing by David Jauss, has really helped me get a clearer idea of what it is. After reading it 3 times :-(, yes, I know I sometimes ask myself that too! I feel more confident now that I have put together this table with information on PoV in a more (IMHO) accessible way.

 

Jauss' Point of View
OUTSIDE: Dramatic TS Elliot called it: 'Objective Correlative'	for it imitates the conventions of drama, which does not report thoughts, only words and deeds. Narrator assumes maximum distance from characters e.g. 'the man', 'the girl'. 'an objective, sensory detail or act that correlates to a character's subjective thought or feeling'.
Richard Cohen: "There are basically two of them: first person third person The only difference between 1st and 3rd person is the reader's response	'I' 'he, she' We never question a 3rd-person narrator's statement, but we sometimes question the first-person narrator's statement.
Burroway divides each of Cohen's two basic points of view into various types: first person divided into: ·         first-person central ·         first-person peripheral third person is divided into ·         omniscient ·         limited omniscient ·         dramatic	depending on whether the narrator is the main character or a secondary one depending on whether the narrator tells us the thoughts and feelings of several characters, just one character none
Booth's first person Booth calls "privilege"	Inference the right to inform the reader of the contents of a character's heart and mind. He invites to abandon the term 'omniscient' for 'privileged'.
Jauss' first person omniscience	Example: Flaubert's Mme Bovary. The narrator is a childhood friend of Charles' and yet he fully enters Charles and Emma's minds reporting their thoughts (first person) which he could otherwise never known. 1st-person omniscience is considered a 'mistake' by some scholars.
OUTSIDE AND INSIDE: TECHNIQUE 1 - Omniscience Limited Regular Jauss' suggests not to divide the term and use 'omniscience'	Narrator reports the thoughts and feeling of only 1 character at least 2 and usually more characters to describe the point of view used when the narrator reports, in his language, the thoughts of any number of characters
TECHNIQUE 2 - Indirect Interior Monologue (It involves altering the tense, transforming person from first to third) Henry James called this 'co-narrator' Indirect interior monologue is used by 3rd person narrators to 1st person narrator to	Whereas the omniscient point of view requires the narrator to translate the character's thoughts and feelings into his own language, indirect interior monologue allows him to use his character's language. 'reflector' Reflect a character's thoughts Reflect another character's thoughts Reflect their own PRIOR thoughts Reflects not only the diction of the character's thoughts but the grammar, syntax, and associational movement of those thoughts as well
INSIDE: Direct Interior Monologue Most common in 3rd person narration but also possible in 1st person.	the character's thoughts are not just "reflected," they are presented directly, without altering person or tense.
Stream of consciousness 'incessant, associational movement of our thoughts.' (Term coined by William James in Principles of Psychology) If defined in terms of person 3 Degrees of depth possible/suggested	PoV that takes reader completely inside characters, it presents those thoughts as they exist before the character's mind has "edited" them or arranged them into complete sentences Punctuation is often eschewed! 1st person PoV Conscious Semi conscious Unconscious

'...perhaps the most important purpose of point of view is to manipulate the degree of distance between the characters and the reader in order to achieve the emotional, intellectual, and moral responses the author desires.'p15

References

Jauss, D., 2000. From Long Shots to X-Rays: Distance & Point of View in Fiction Writing. [online]. Last accessed 20 March 2015 at: http://moodle.nottingham.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=31048.