Point Of View Examples

The five passages demonstrate various ways an author can use narrative point of view as a device to further enhance the prose. Though this may seem obvious as the author needs to establish how they are going to compose their characters and their story, however the way an author uses point of view can change the way a certain scene is read and can change the readers perception on characters. I will be looking at how the authors of the five texts establish point of view by looking at the mode of narrative within each text; how thought and speech is presented; how the use of point of view affects the text; and if the narrative were in another form, would it be as effective. In texts i, iii and iv, the use of the personal pronoun ‘I’ and the possessive determiner ‘my’ are lexical markers of the first person narrative and are therefore homodiegetic as the narrator is situated inside the narrative. However, where text iii and iv include verba sentiendi, this is evident through the reference to the narrators personal feelings and thoughts, “I woke up with a dreadful start, my ears ringing,” and “I disliked the New Neanderthal locker-room overtones,” the narrator in text i “withholds subjective evaluation in favour of an ostensibly more ‘neutral’ description of events.” (Simpson 2014: 133). Text i tells the …show more content…
This is seen through the use of voice in the way the author presents speech and thought within the text; and through the use of narrative positioning within the text to demonstrate distances from the speaker. These allow the narrator of the text to provide insight not only to specific characters but also to the surroundings, providing the reader with an immersive first-hand