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    Narrative Point of View

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    jihanselmi9

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Narrative Point of View

    Uploaded by

    jihanselmi9
    10 views2 pages

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    © © All Rights Reserved

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    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as pdf or txt
    10 views2 pages

    Narrative Point of View

    Uploaded by

    jihanselmi9

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 2

    Introduction

    Although point of view may be described as narrative point of view, this is not to say the term
    is only relevant to fiction – news articles, essays, travel writing and other texts also make use
    of first and third person point of view. However, when they do this, it tends to be when
    narrating, reporting or re-counting events, which may be factual events. Various kinds of
    journalism are good examples of texts that may have distinctive uses of voice and be written
    in the first or third person.
    Narrative point of view
    Narrative point of view is closely linked to voice. For example, it would be difficult to gauge
    what someone’s narrative point of view is, whether as narrator or as a character in a text,
    without identifying what is distinctive about their voice. It can be expressed directly and
    explicitly. For example:
    • ‘Keep oil exploration out of Africa’s oldest national park’
    • ‘I hated him from the first moment we met’
    • ‘Buy our latest model – it’s the most efficient on the market’
    As a reader you can work out the narrative point of view in these examples from the use of
    emotive verbs (verbs that express personal feeling or belief such as ‘I hated..’), imperatives
    (strong, command verbs or phrases such as ‘Keep ... out’, ‘Buy ...’) or from comparatives
    and superlatives (‘the most efficient...’).
    Narrative point of view can also be expressed more subtly, requiring you as a reader to infer
    meaning to work out what is being implied.
    Until six he has somewhere to go. After that he will be adrift amid the Saturday night
    fun-seekers. Here, the word ‘adrift’ creates an image of someone who is left floating alone
    on the sea. It implies the
    loneliness of the character but does not express it directly.

    The effect of direct and indirect (reported) speech on the immediacy of a text
    Narrative point of view can also be expressed in terms of proximity – how close or far the
    narrative voice seems to be from the things or events being described. This is often a result
    of the way in which speech and tenses are used. For example:
    • Direct speech is the use of the actual words spoken in a conversation which are enclosed
    in speech marks (‘I hate you!’ she said).
    • Indirect/reported speech is the gist of what has been said but not the precise words. It is
    often conversation that is reported at a later time (She said that she hated him/She told him
    that she hated him).
    The following table shows how the use of different tenses positions the reader in time and
    place to a text.

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