Narrative Voice and Point of View

Jenny Perez, Jasmine Pineda, and Patrick Smith

● Narration: act of telling a storyo Narrator: one who is telling the story

● Forms of Narrative:o Novel, novella, short story

● Examples o Great Gatsby narrated by Nick Carrawayo Adventures of Huckleberry Finn narrated by Huck Finn

● Identity always differs from that of the author’s because the narrator is their invention, in some sense

Narrative Voice

Point of View

● Point of view can be identified by the pronoun that the narrator uses to recount eventso “I,” and “We” for the first-persono “He,” “She,” or “They” for the third-persono “You” for the second-person

First Person● Use of “I” or “We”● Advantages: Immediacy and directness

o Allows the reader to engage with the speakero First-hand experiences

● Disadvantages: POV Limitationso The narrator can only relate to what he/she has witnessed

● Example:o “It was times like these when I thought my father, who

hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.” - To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Second Person● Narrator addresses the audience directly using the pronoun

“You”o Assumes the audience is experiencing the events along

with the narratoro “Had you gone for a Sunday afternoon ride that day, you

might have seen him, close to naked, standing on the shoulders of Route 424, waiting for a chance to cross.” The Swimmer, 1964

o Rare, used in third person point of view to allow the narrator to take an aside with the audience

Third Person Omniscient ● Narrator knows/can reveal everything about

a given character or situation● Intrusive

o Adds moral commentary to the characters and events

● Objectiveo Presence is merely implied, doesn’t add any

opinions or commentary

Third Person Limited● Restricts POV to the understanding and

experience of one/a few characters ● Stream of Consciousness

o Used to replicate the thought processes of a character

o Little/no intervention by narrator ex: Catcher in the Rye

Quiz!

“Had you gone for a Sunday afternoon ride that day you might have seen him, close to naked, standing on the shoulders of Route 424, waiting for a chance to cross. You might have wondered if he was the victim of foul play, had his car broken down, or was merely a fool”- “The Swimmer” by John Cheever

Quiz!

“The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it”- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark

Twain